


The Parallel 2 Electric Boogaloo: Path of Demons

by kireteiru



Series: The Parallel 2 Electric Boogaloo [2]
Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Forerunner-Flood War, Gen, How Do I Tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:53:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 50,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24037690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kireteiru/pseuds/kireteiru
Summary: Semi-AU. "Today I leave the only world I have ever called home, not for glory or the anomalous desire to end another's life as you have indicted; but to travel the Path of Demons to spare the hands of another Father's son." | Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. This is ours.
Relationships: Cortana/John-117 | Master Chief, OC/OC (mentioned)
Series: The Parallel 2 Electric Boogaloo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576843
Comments: 1
Kudos: 50





	1. Prologue: Planted Memories

“And that’s what you saw?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You're _sure_?”

“Positive, sir.”

Fred worked hard to keep his face impassive as all of HIGHCOM stared down at him and the rest of Blue Team. ONI had finally got around to debriefing them concerning the Battle of Installation Zero-Zero, but once they heard that the Supreme Commander was apparently another Spartan, the agents brought them straight to HIGHCOM.

_ Straight _ to HIGHCOM - _all_ of them. Sam was only half in uniform, and Kelly had her toothbrush tucked in a pocket. Linda was still fully in her sleepwear but looked utterly unconcerned about it, while the rest of them were trying not to sweat.

Hood zoomed in on an image of the Supreme Commander, taken from one of the Spartans’ helmet cams. His armor was sleeker and more streamlined than anything ONI had in even the earliest stages of development, and the shields they generated had taken a direct hit from a rocket launcher without even so much as a flicker.

(Even Linda had sighed with want when they saw that on the footage; they all had been looking elsewhere at the time.)

But for all that it was alien, the armor was still immediately recognizable as a cousin of the MJOLNIR, with “117” in white on the left side of the breastplate and also on his IFF tag: Supreme Commander of the _Fleet of Shadows_ ( _The Last Fleet_ ) and Director of Ecumenical Special Operations, Flood and Quarantine Division, SPARTAN John-117.

Hood eyed the image for a second. “And you said you _dreamed_ about him as well? Before he appeared in the guise of ‘Sergeant Smith’?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mm.”

Fred clenched his jaw, trying to keep silent, but it was too much. “I know it seems unbelievable, sir-”

“I believe you, Master Chief.”

When Fred looked the man in the eye, Hood did seem to mean it. “It’s just… there’s so much we _don’t know_. There are no mentions of this ‘Sierra-117’; the records indicate Candidate 117 was _definitely_ not named ‘John’ - and neither were any of the _other_ non-conscripted candidates. So where did he come _from_? How did he get _here_? How did he acquire his fleet and all of the alien species that man the ships? So many questions, and to be blunt, _what the hell is going on_ is definitely one of them.”

A few of the other officers let out soft huffs of laughter. Against his will, Fred felt his lips turn up at the corners.

“And then there’s the matter of Cortana,” Hood went on, “Doctor Halsey has turned over all her records concerning Cortana’s existence from the very _moment_ of her birth to when she was brought onboard the _Pillar of Autumn_.” He nodded to Rear Admiral Keyes, who returned the gesture. “At least as far as we know, she _never_ had contact with this Spartan before meeting him on Alpha Halo. And while I’m sure that his and his team’s CSVs are very thorough, I think if we question the people they claim to have served with, we’ll find that they never existed.”

“We knew he had some good AIs - _very_ good,” said Halsey, on hand as a consultant, “but I never imagined them being _this_ powerful. To spoof the UNSC’s and even ONI’s systems so thoroughly that no one knew until _now_ , when they chose to reveal themselves… We know our security is better than the Covenant’s, so I can’t even begin to contemplate the kind of skill and processing power that must take. But if I may…”

Hood gestured for her to continue, so she did. “Here, the Monitor refers to him as ‘the _Fleet_ ’s Compound Mind,’ and he himself says that he has ‘Venera and Kenera’ with him, which we saw…”

Green Team’s helmet cam footage played back on screen, the twins getting run through by the Stalker form, then being processed into combat forms. But then the playback changed, turning to “V” and “K” and their rock-paper-scissors match, both of them unharmed but entirely covered in armor.

“And that doesn’t even begin to cover ‘Ambience-of-Night’,” she said.

Again the playback from Green Team, this time of Ambi in his UNSC gear being dragged screaming from the _Truth and Reconciliation_ ’s brig. They hadn’t actually seen the footage before, but now that they had, now that they _knew_ , they could see that he wasn’t necessarily struggling against the Flood as hard as he could have.

“I imagine that when the _Fleet_ returns and we do a check,” Halsey finished, “we’ll find this ‘Feriha’ among them as well.”

“I’d like to second that ‘what the hell is going on’,” said Keyes.

“I think we all would.”

* * *

That night, they started to get their answers.

That night, the _geas_ woke inside them all, triggered by the end of the war. They started to dream, first of the Origin and John’s lonely path through it. Then the Taking, as it came to be called; his arrival in the Parallel.

And then… everything that came after.


	2. One: Machine World

The garden wasn’t something he had expected to find on a Warrior-Servant world. It must have been the Librarian’s influence, bringing the bright plants to Far Nomdagro. Some of them appeared pitch black, but he had it on good authority that they captured the light of the sun and released it at night in a soft blue glow.

John sat in the shade of something akin to a short but wide palm, clad only in loose white pants that were _much_ too large, even for him, and yet were the smallest available in the house. The Librarian’s aides had taken his MJOLNIR armor for study - and they were probably going to take it apart as well, which he was not happy about. But he’d been promised a set of their armor, newer, better than even the bleeding edge of human tech, so he would deal. With any luck, their studies would get them all some answers.

“My wife tells me that you fell from orbit.”

The Spartan jerked his head up and beheld a Forerunner who _towered_ over him, nearly twice his height, a Warrior-Servant with a deep scowl, the twins from before standing calm behind him near the entrance to the garden.

This must be the Didact.

“And landed practically on our doorstep,” the Forerunner continued, eyeing him with unashamed distaste.

John knew how to deal with officers who didn't like him, though with the ODSTs it had been because he was a Spartan, not because he was human. Still, he let his face go blank and calm and rose to salute respectfully. “I’ll have to take her word for that, sir,” he answered, moving to stand at parade rest, “I don't remember it. One second I was - where I was, and then I was waking up in your infirmary.”

“Hm.” The Didact still eyed him, but seemed pleased at his show of respect. Then he circled him, looking him up and down. “I see that my old enemies have retaken at least one of their ancient forms, even after we laid them low. My wife’s work, no doubt. She always had held your kind in a strange sort of favor. From what year do you come?”

“Human year 2552, or somewhere around there. I was - _in stasis_ , so I don't know the exact date. But based on what I was told in my world, it’s roughly a hundred thousand years from now.”

That got a reaction from all three of the Warrior-Servants. Both of the twins straightened, and the Didact’s brows climbed nearly to the top of his head. “And yet we are strange to you,” said the Promethean, “You have never seen our like before? Not _once_?”

“No sir.”

He rubbed a hand over his chin. “That _is_ troubling. I see now why my wife thought it prudent to call me in.”

John hesitated to speak without being spoken to - the Didact was big enough and strong enough that all he would have to do is grab and squeeze if he thought the Spartan was being insubordinate - but he needed intel. “Is something happening?”

“Those who are ‘in the know’ are making our cases for how we shall proceed against the Flood, when it comes.” The Promethean took note of his reaction - tightened fists, clenched jaw. “You know it.”

“I've _fought_ it. It’s _monstrous_.” He took a deep breath, tried to let his tension drain away.

Some undefinable sensation made him look up in time to see the Librarian enter the garden. Her gaze was soft as she approached. “I see you’ve met. Spartan, my husband, the Didact, protector of the ecumene. Husband, SPARTAN John-117 of the humans’ United Nations Space Command.”

The warriors inclined their heads to each other.

“Come, both of you. There is much to be done.”

They followed her inside. “We have had a breakthrough in compatibility,” she informed them, leading them into a lab of sorts. The MJOLNIR armor was laid out on one of the tables, a few Huragok poking at it, turning pieces between their many tentacles. “The Huragok have successfully copied over all the data from your armor, Spartan. If you wish to have it back, it is yours, but I recommend wearing one of ours; they are more advanced, and if this breaks, we will not be able to fix it, not easily.”

John nodded. “Fair enough.”

She turned to another Lifeworker. “Chant, can you assist?”

The younger Forerunner - Chant-to-Green - nodded and gestured for John to join her at an armor station on one side of the room. It looked vaguely similar to a UNSC station if he squinted, so he hesitated only a moment before stripping and stepping in, starting only a little when the system came online with a hum.

It wasn't enough to cover the sounds of the Didact and the Librarian talking. “He has told me much,” the Lifeworker was saying, “but the recordings from his armor, and the echo of the imprint his world’s version of me left within his people...” She shook her head. “I saw it, Didact. He only encountered a _small_ hive, but it moved so fast! I fear that our plan will not be feasible.”

“So we should - what? Follow the path of the Builders and Faber? Advocate absolute destruction against the Mantle’s teachings?”

“Didact…” She sighed, and held out a hand. The Promethean took it, and energy glimmered between them.

The Didact’s eyes went distant as she gave him the data from the MJOLNIR, then he let out a long breath. “Mantle have mercy. It _is_ monstrous. An abomination even greater than the Array.”

“It is.” She shook her head, grief-stricken. “Everything we have built will mean nothing in the face of this.”

“But still…” When the Librarian looked up at him, the Didact said, “There was still Flood remaining, enough to make a Gravemind, old and strong, that sent him here. So clearly the Builders’ _Array_ did not eradicate _all_ the Flood.”

“It did enough,” she returned, “It saved the galaxy, so that we could repopulate it.”

“And yet what became of us? What became of our people?” he nearly demanded, “The Spartan never encountered one of us - this _Covenant_ seems to believe the Array let us transcend mortality to become gods. That tells me that we - are there truly _none_ of us left? The Flood destroyed us all?”

“Not all of us,” she said, “Reseeding an entire galaxy is not something that could be done by machines alone - there must be a living touch behind it.”

“Then what became of _them_? Where there truly so few left behind that we could not…?” He shook his head. “No. I will stay the course. With my Shield Worlds, many will be saved, instead of only a few.”

The Librarian gazed sadly at him. “I wish it were that easy, my love.”

* * *

The Didact left not long after, making his wife sigh again. “Stubborn, isn’t he?” she said with something like a half-smile, mostly visible around her eyes as she nearly glided over to check the progress of the armor growing up around him, “Part of what drew me to him once. The strength of his conviction. Some days it felt like he willed it and the universe made it so.”

“I know the type.” Doctor Halsey had been the same, and Cortana after her, but thinking of them was painful. He might never see them again - probably wouldn't. What hope was there for him to return home to his universe? He barely understood how he’d arrived in this one.

“You do, don't you.” Her smile turned faintly sad before fading. “But we have a task ahead of us. Even with the alterations the Flood has worked in you, I can see my fingerprints in your making, and I am hoping that your world’s version of me might have left you something - knowledge, memories, embedded in your DNA. With the right triggers, we might be able to wake it.”

“What do we need to do?”

* * *

He had never seen Earth like this, clear and clean and natural. There were humans, of course, countless varieties, some even with cities, but the planet wasn't built up like it had been in his time. No skyscrapers or planes or automobiles or ships - nothing like he remembered, at least. There were ships and airships, but primitive, mostly of natural materials, and nothing even close to spacefaring.

It was hard to believe that humanity had once had an interstellar empire - and one day would again. He opened his mouth - and then shut it again with a snap, jaw going tight. Cortana wasn't here; he couldn't ask her for intel on what was happening below.

But even as he thought that, his armor’s ancilla appeared in the back of his mind, wearing his AI’s face.

**_ “No!” _ ** he snapped at her, his voice thick with Flood influence, **“Not her! _Anyone_ but her!”**

The ancilla vanished as suddenly as she’d come. Then after a minute or so, she slowly filtered back in. Now she looked like Déjà, the AI that had aided Doctor Halsey in training the SPARTAN-IIs. _“Is this acceptable?”_

He let out a breath and relaxed, pushing the Flood back down where it lurked under the surface. “Yes,” he answered, “I’m - sorry. It’s just - too soon after...”

The ancilla nodded as if she understood. John knew she didn't, not really; though impressively swift and intelligent, most Forerunners’ personal AIs weren't “smart” - they took in data, but they didn't really learn on their own or seek it out of their own volition. _“Would you like to see below?”_

“Just a general overview, and any significant events happening right now.” There would be time later to go further back, and learn the specifics of the Didact’s (and the twins’) dislike of his species, and humanity’s own lost history - what the Forerunners knew of it, at least. He thought it would be a lot, but it remained to be seen if that was true.

The ancilla brought up the data for his perusal, and peruse he did. Some part of him - that had its roots in the Flood, he was sure - was hungry for knowledge about the universe as it was now, wanted to devour everything he could clap eyes on, but he couldn't deny that he was curious on his own as well. What _was_ the universe like now? What was humanity like?

Pretty boring, from the looks of things. When the Forerunners reset a species’ evolutionary clock, they did the job well, despite even humanity’s stubbornness. They'd re-evolved in a lot of ways, but it was still all petty squabbles over land and food and family - and it didn't seem like the Forerunners were much better at the core, just on a far larger and grander scale.

“Anything?”

John looked up as the Librarian came over. It took a moment for him to recall what she was speaking of, and he paused for a moment to think. “Nothing… definitive, ma’am. Something that might be something, but I don't know for sure. It’s hard to say. I don’t exactly know what to expect, or what I’m even looking for.”

“Understandable. We can go down to the surface for a time, if you wish, but there are also other places we can try, though they will have to wait until later. I am being called to testify before the Ecumenical Council.”

John nodded and said, “There was a place, in Africa - that continent there, about here - where a Portal Generator was constructed.”

“That sounds as good a place as any.”

He rode with her and the twins down to the surface. The sleek transport was so smooth that he almost didn't notice they were moving, and the landing was just as soft and slight. The Forerunners didn't even know what kind of luxury that was, just seemed to think that was their due.

** Greedy and prideful; we will enjoy laying them low- **

_ Shut up. _

The humans didn't seem to notice them when they entered the market - at least not right away. But when they did…

They seemed to worship the Librarian. More than just bowing and scraping when they saw her, begging for her blessing or believing they already were blessed just by seeing her. The Spartan saw at least one temple and more than a few wayside shrines that bore a rough approximation of her image. “What did you do to them?” he asked when they finally had a moment to breathe.

“Many things,” she answered, surveying the market below them. They had made their way to the terrace on the top floor of a boarding house of sorts. “Thousands of years ago now, mankind spread into the stars with an unexpected, desperate violence. Your people ran rampant over entire systems - at the time, we thought you were seeking worlds to settle. Perhaps some of you were, but that was not the only reason. We fought back - both us as a people and my family personally. The Didact and I lost all of our children in the conflict.” She shook her head. “But we didn't know until it was all over… We were not your only enemy. Humanity hadn't been _expanding_ \- you were _running_.”

“From the Flood?” John asked. His ancilla had been providing visuals and additional data while she spoke, but it was important to confirm.

She nodded. “Not much remains from that time in particular, but it started innocently enough. It came in the form of a powder discovered on ancient starships, reportedly short-chain organic molecules. When pets were treated with it, it made their fur softer and the animals themselves more friendly - at first. But then it started to change, grew malicious. The animals started cannibalizing each other, exhibited unnatural growths and abortions. Some humans had eaten the treated animals, and they showed the same alterations - and worse. The Flood - the _Shaping Sickness_ , they called it - started to spread, too fast to be contained. You’ve seen it.”

John nodded. He _had_ seen it, _far_ too close for comfort.

“By that point, entire star systems were beyond saving. We learned too late that your attacks on our worlds were not against _us_ , but against the Flood that had already gained footholds there. But then something happened. Humankind seemed to engineer a genetic kill switch or an immunity of some kind that made huge swaths of the Flood die off and drove the rest to retreat.”

“Did they tell you that?”

“An assumption from the time. We found healthy human worlds in sectors overrun with the Flood, which led us to believe you had developed resistance or even full immunity. I had been second-guessing that even before your testimony, but your people destroyed all your data on the Flood and none of our Warrior-Servants brought back any live samples. There was no way to know for sure.”

She sighed. “In an attempt to discover your secrets, I arranged for humanity to be spared from extinction as proposed by the Ecumenical Council, and had the memories of your greatest warriors and scientists of the time planted in the genetic material of the survivors. I had hoped that in time, with the right triggers, those descendants would awaken their imprints and be more willing to talk with us than their predecessors.”

“Humanity is _not_ immune to the Flood. _No one_ is. But if I have one of these imprints, there’s nothing here that’s making me remember.”

“There are other places we can try, including a few in particular. We will go there next, after I return.”

* * *

The Librarian departed for the capital, Maethrillian, on a different ship, leaving the twins (who _finally_ introduced themselves as Venera Chorenn Acaer and Kenera Chorenn Oleald) to take him back to Far Nomdagro. He kept mostly to himself, but the ship was small; it was unavoidable that they would run into each other.

“We lost our parents, in the war against humanity.”

John looked up from his meal - he didn't think he’d ever eaten a purely vegetarian meal, not even during boot camp, but apparently the Forerunners didn't consume any meat at all - and found Kenera approaching. She sat down across from him, and the ship’s ancilla sent her a meal of her own. She didn't touch it, not yet at least. “It is… hard for us. For me and my twin, and the Didact as well. We fought so hard for so long and lost so many people, and now we find out that it was all for nothing. Just someone else pulling the strings.”

“I’m familiar with the feeling, at least a little. More from your end than mine, thought.”

“Your - Human-Covenant War.”

He nodded. “I grew to respect the Arbiter, Shipmaster ‘Vadum, and the other Sangheili in the end, but we’d been fighting against each other for so long. It was hard to let go.”

“And you lost family as well.”

Another nod. “Not blood family - or none that I know of, at least. But shield-brothers and sisters, yes. We grew up together, trained together, fought side by side for decades. We were family in all the ways that matter.”

Kenera gave a soft nod of her own. “It is the same with us. The Didact and the Librarian - their children chose to become Warrior-Servants, Prometheans, like him. Our parents had been his adjutants for a long time, so we knew one another, trained together at the war college. All of them died in the war, and although he has never said one way or another, both Venera and I believe that our parents were infected by the Flood.

“Perhaps this time your people and mine can fight together against our common foe.”

“It would be an honor.”


	3. Two: Messenger of Ruination

The Librarian didn't actually return for several local years, closer to five Earth years. It was an exercise in patience; he couldn't actually remember the last time that he’d had _real_ downtime that wasn't just a moment to catch his breath before being shipped like so much cargo to another world to fight, much less _five years_ of it.

Venera and Kenera helped him in that respect, teaching him several Forerunner dialects and what they could about everything they knew, in addition to supplementing the information his ancilla gave him with their own experiences. Among other things, Kenera taught him a meditation technique that actually helped him keep the Flood infection on a tighter leash, and Venera took him out exploring in the local star systems.

And his ancilla herself - she didn't have a name and he wasn't any good at giving them, so he just took to calling her Déjà - gave him access to a wealth of information, both physical databases and an esoteric cloud database called “the Domain”. He’d never really been one for research, but he _devoured_ everything she gave him no matter what it was about. Still, what interested him most was what the Forerunners knew about human history. It was strange to him, looking at humanity through an exterior lens, but what they knew was invaluable.

Humanity had had problems with something like the Insurrection before, _several_ times. Many splinter groups throughout history had broken off to try and form their own governments or even completely destroy the “home government”. The only difference was, the Insurrection _won_ \- but at a cost.

These Insurrections at least, never pulled together to replace what they had torn down, and human society fragmented. Billions died because of the fighting, the loss of shared knowledge, decentralization, even in-fighting between the ancient Insurrectionists themselves. In a few cases, some groups even lost spaceflight and were bound to their worlds for hundreds, even thousands of years. Humanity lost contact with other subsets, their evolution diverged, and there was _more_ fighting when they were finally reunited.

While far from an _ideal_ solution, perhaps the UNSC and ONI were in fact justified in creating the SPARTAN-II Program in an attempt to hold everything together.

But it was the Domain itself that he found strangest of everything he encountered. The armor he wore let his ancilla access the database, but every time she did so, he found his mind following her path.

At least to him, the Domain looked something like a cathedral or library built of faintly iridescent metal, with countless halls and levels, with access terminals everywhere, connected to data streams that seemed to flow in glowing channels through the metal. Whatever the Domain actually was, it didn't appear to be Forerunner - or at least not any that he knew. He supposed it could have been an idealized version of their work, perhaps what they hoped to one day make real, but the Domain itself seemed to tell him that that wasn't the case.

The Forerunners he saw there - called “Haruspis” or “Haruspices” - noticed him but only in passing, and they didn't seem to care that he was there or even that he was human. They were more interested in what the _Domain_ was doing, how it responded to his presence. It seemed to be alive, to have a mind of its own, and it _unearthed things_ in response to him, opened up new paths and recalled information otherwise lost, buried under everything new that was added on a daily basis.

It also seemed to be leading him to something. It whispered to him, murmured about an ancient Forerunner named “Boundless”, kept bringing her research to the fore and once even metaphysically placed it in his hands. He read it from beginning to end enough times that he could practically recite it from memory, and when he mentioned it in a transmission to the Librarian, she directed him to a physical copy she had acquired from one of Boundless’s contemporaries.

The Domain had not made any alterations to it whatsoever, which both the Librarian and the Haruspices found _very_ interesting. “The records in the Domain have been known to change over time,” the Lifeworker informed him, “apparently of their own accord and possibly as a result of new information being added. That this has gone unchanged for almost a million years is very interesting indeed.”

* * *

Then one day, the Domain said, _Charum Hakkor._

John looked up from the reports he’d been reading. Records of the Human-Forerunner War were still very close to the surface, metaphorically speaking, and he was poring over everything he could find, learning more on the ancient history of his kind and both humans’ and Forerunners’ triumphs and mistakes during their war against each other.

He blinked. “What?”

 _Charum Hakkor_ , the Domain said again, _First-Light-Weaves-Living-Song returns. Tell her ‘Charum Hakkor.’_

He frowned and let the Domain gently shunt him back out into the real world.

The Spartan was still frowning when he emerged, but he got up and went to find the twins.

Venera and Kenera were sparring in an empty room in the estate, but they knew one another so well that they weren't really getting anywhere in terms of victory. They almost seemed to read each other’s minds or even see the future, and in some cases one moved to block before the other had even moved to strike.

He watched them for a few minutes, then said, “What’s Charum Hakkor?”

Both of them stopped mid-strike and blinked at him. “Charum Hakkor?” Venera repeated, brow furrowed.

He nodded, and they straightened and stepped away from each other. “It’s a star system on the edge of the galaxy,” she answered, “the _extreme_ edge, right on the border of intergalactic space. Known for having a lot of Precursor architecture.” She hesitated, then continued, softer, “It’s where the Didact said our parents died.”

Kenera tilted her head just slightly. “Why do you ask?”

“The Domain says that the Librarian’s on her way back. It seems like it wants her to take me there.”

That made both of them give him a look.

But sure enough, the Librarian arrived only a few local hours later. She looked tired, like she’d been away five _thousand_ years instead of just five. “No good news, I take it,” John said quietly.

She shook her head. “The Didact fought hard, but we lost. The Master Builder and his team have won with their Halo Array. Though I must say… They have plans for twelve rings, but you only spoke of seven, and much smaller than what they are planning. I confess I’m almost afraid to find out the reason for the discrepancies.”

“As am I.” The Ark had rebuilt Zero-Four after it had been destroyed, so John didn't think that the reason was some of the rings had been destroyed. And “smaller” Halos? How _much_ smaller were they talking? Or rather, how much bigger were _these_? Especially since the rings as he remembered them had still been _enormous_ , bigger than anything humanity had made by the end of the war.

“You don't look surprised to see that I have returned. Was there news of my coming?”

John pursed his lips. “News. Don't know if it qualifies as good. The Domain said you were returning and to tell you ‘Charum Hakkor.’”

“ _Ah,_ ” she sighed, “I had wondered which one to choose. It seems that it has done the choosing for me.”

“What were the other options?”

“One of them was Janjur Qom, home of the San’Shyuum. You know them as the Prophets.”

That made him _hiss_. It had completely slipped his mind that the member species of the Covenant were here as well; out of sight, out of mind. He felt the crawling heat of the Flood supercells activating, slithering through his veins, and he turned away to do his mental exercises to get it back under control. **“Do _not_ take me to that planet,” **he growled, **“I will _destroy_ them.”**

“They were once humanity’s allies - they have done nothing to you.”

 **“ _Yet,”_ **he returned through gritted teeth.

* * *

Charum Hakkor _hummed_.

The Forerunners didn't notice it, likely couldn't hear, but the closer they got, the more John became aware that the main planet was emitting a sound that wasn't exactly a sound. It was a vibration of sorts that he felt more than heard and formed shapes in his mind’s eye; he traced the paths of the orbital arches with his thoughts long before they came into view.

But there was something else - a void, a mental black hole of wrath and hunger that he skirted the edges of. If it was self-aware, it hadn't noticed him, and he was eager to keep it that way.

_whoever made such a place must now live in chains; there is no other explanation for their absence_

The ship landed on the surface, on the outskirts of an ancient human city built on top of older Precursor structures. John was the last one off the ship, having been collecting some weapons, just in case, and he looked around.

The planet was still and empty, save for the dark anger somewhere nearby. Some memories stirred as he walked the streets - mostly ancient battles long ended - but nothing about the Flood. He saw phantoms running through the streets, followed the fighting and watched the end of the Human-Forerunner War nine thousand years past.

John found his way to the base of one of the massive orbital arches and looked up. Even human space elevators didn't compare to the size and strength of the construction; it filled the whole of his vision at the base and narrowed to a slender curve high overhead, almost like a Halo ring.

He reached out and laid a hand on the arch - and the mental hum intensified, the metal rippling under his hands. The whole arch shivered and swayed, making him backpedal and lift his suppressor - not that it would do much if an attack came. Venera and Kenera did the same, putting themselves between the arch and the Librarian, but after a moment the arch settled.

When it had been still for almost a minute, the Librarian slipped past her guards to approach. The arch didn't react when she touched it, or even when her armor scanned it. But the moment John touched it again, it rippled and rolled under his fingers. “I almost wish there was a Builder I could safely take in confidence,” she said, watching it happen, “I’m sure they would find this as fascinating as I do your cells.”

She and Venera took the data back to the ship for analysis, letting John and Kenera keep walking the empty streets. The Spartan’s feet brought him to a massive arena, then down below, where another smaller area waited below the surface.

There was a massive _thing_ at the center, a capsule of some kind, of both human and Forerunner make, the latter covering the former. “The Didact told us about this,” Kenera said quietly, though her voice still echoed around the chamber, “There’s… _something_ inside. He called it the Primordial.”

John warily let his suppressor snap to his back plates and moved up to stand at the edge of the railings, hands curling around the metal.

This was the source of the wrath, the hunger, and the moment he got closer, it became aware of him.

Its focus was like nothing he had ever felt before. The closest equivalent he could come up with was when the Gravemind had spoken directly into his mind on _High Charity_ , but that had been a voice, personality. This had no real voice to speak of, only conveyed impressions directly into his brain - a means of communication against which there was no defense.

 _You,_ it sighed, _Through a glass, darkly… I see you, child. Who are you?_

His skin crawled. He tried to withdraw, but its awareness held him tight and examined him like he was an animal, an _insect_ awaiting dissection and worthy of no more regard than that. As it did so, it appeared in his mind’s eye, a massive, twisted, _unholy_ mix of mammal and arthropod, holding him grasped in its largest pair of hands. Its head looked something like a horseshoe crab with glittering eyes, wicked and cruel, and it was attached by a thick neck to something akin to a warped, obese, four-armed ape, the upper set of arms larger than the lower.

Though it was his enemy, the Flood in him made him **hungry** , and gave him back more than a little of the temper and pride that the UNSC had tried to train out of him. It surged now in wrath, howling, working _with_ him for once, and lashed out with sharp claws at the _thing_ that held him, catching it and ripping in before it could raise its own defenses. It withdrew from him, stung.

But then the thing _laughed_.

 _How_ interesting. _All the gears are now in motion, spinning out our revenge at last. I wonder if you truly will make a difference in the end, SPARTAN-117. Let’s find out, shall we?_

* * *

They left within the hour, but even under his armor, John was still dripping with cold sweat. “What can we do?” he asked, “If this _thing_ \- this _Primordial_ \- is right, if the Flood is on its way…”

“We will watch,” said the Librarian, “and we will wait. But there are other things we can do in the meantime. I do not believe it is a coincidence that the Domain told us to come here now, or that it has shown favor to you and Boundless. Once all of this furor about Shields versus Fortresses dies down, we shall see what might be seen.”


	4. Three: The Sealed-Away Ark of Sin

Though he had never met the Forerunner in question, John now knew that the Master Builder, at least, was one vindictive son of a bitch. Getting information from the twins about what was happening was worse than pulling teeth, but at last they explained that though the ecumene had not used capital punishment for millions of years, there were _other ways_ of “getting rid of undesirables”. The Didact had been sentenced to one of them, something called a “Cryptum”.

“The point of it is that if it is found, it is considered sacrilegious to disturb a Cryptum, or ‘Warrior Keep’, save at great need - or on the order of the Ecumenical Council,” Venera nearly hissed, scowling fiercely, “Which essentially means that the Master Builder holds all the power and now can both banish and recall the Didact at his convenience.” She said something else that the Spartan didn't understand, which was probably a curse.

“Have faith in the Librarian,” Kenera told them both, “She can see further than any of us. If there is even the slightest chance to orchestrate the Didact’s return outside of the Master Builder’s control, she will find it and implement it.”

None of them attended the couple’s last dinner, instead electing to give them privacy for what might be their very last night. They spent the time eating their own dinner with another of their few remaining family members: another Promethean Warrior-Servant whose name also refused to translate properly, just like the twins’. She was Nethalia Noelind Hesleri, widow of one of the Didact’s and the Librarian’s children. When she arrived, she eyed John up and down, same as the Didact had at their first meeting, then nodded, apparently satisfied, and greeted him - not respectful, but also not hostile.

They ate and traded war stories, and before the Didact was sealed in his Cryptum, they were called in one at a time to speak with him.

John had never seen _any_ Promethean so frail, let alone one as powerful as the Didact. He was still alive, but his body had been thoroughly desiccated by whatever medicine he’d been given; he looked more like a mummy, half a corpse, than the warrior that had laid humanity low. “I know neither of us have any right to ask anything of each other,” said the Forerunner. Though they had been working towards the same end for several years now, they had been doing it away from each other, so the relationship between human and Forerunner was still strained. “But please, look after my wife. She has been known to put her studies ahead of her own health and safety.”

“I know the type.” Doctor Halsey had been the same when it came to crunch time, right before new iterations of the MJOLNIR were issued to the Spartans. “I’ll do my best.”

The Promethean managed a weak nod and even the tiniest of smiles, much to John’s surprise. “Good luck, and good hunting, Spartan. May your sword stay sharp.”

“And may your strength never falter.”

He stepped back, and let the Haruspis associate steer the Didact’s gurney from the room to the waiting Cryptum.

* * *

After it was done and the Cryptum was taken away, the Librarian approached him. “Do you remember Boundless’s research?”

“Kind of hard to forget with the Domain beating me upside the head with it every other day. But what about it?”

“I am planning an expedition to Path Kethona,” she informed him, “to the Spider, to see what might be seen and to find out why she was so interested in this nebula, why the Domain favored her research on it so much. The wheels are already set in motion, so it will only be a matter of time before it becomes a reality. I would have you come with me.”

That made his eyebrows shoot up. “Are you sure? I mean, there’s nothing I can really do for you that another Forerunner can’t do better, except maybe spreading the Flood infection.”

She nodded. “I know from the terminals you saw that I will not survive the activation of the Array, but I feel it is important that _someone_ lives to bear witness to the future on whatever we may find, if anything. Someone _must_ bear witness, and whether your ‘luck’ is real or not, you have already proven yourself to be a survivor of the highest order. Your Flood DNA has already essentially halted your aging; you are frozen in time at the same age as when you went into stasis - and when you arrived here. If anyone will make it through a hundred thousand years, it will be you.”

“I’m just one human, though. I don't even know what I can do for you during the war.”

“When we return, we will change that.”

* * *

It was as she said. The wheels were set in motion, but it took another fifty years before anything was actually ready. John still spent the time training and accumulating knowledge, between intermittent stints in Lifeworker labs, aiding the Librarian’s teams in the most _careful_ study of his DNA imaginable. Both he and the Lifeshaper had impressed upon them the importance of avoiding direct exposure to the supercells; even though he was “friendly” Flood, he couldn't _prevent_ someone from being infected if they themselves weren’t careful.

But nothing worked. For fifty years, they tried to engineer something - _anything_ \- that he couldn't infect, taking genetic samples from thousands of worlds and recombining them in countless ways. Not even _one_ attempt succeeded - not entirely, at least. There were some strains of DNA that were resistant, but they were so alien as to be essentially unusable for Forerunners and humans alike.

In the process, the Spartan learned a _lot_ about both Forerunner medicine and genetic engineering, and finally met a “trustworthy Builder” by way of the Librarian. Her name was Silver-Moon-of-Fortitude, and while not quite a true friend of Librarian’s, she was very much the enemy of the Master Builder, which the Lifeworker had apparently decided was good enough.

They did not return to Charum Hakkor, instead heading to another deserted world of Precursor artifacts, but the effect was the same. The artifacts stirred when he touched them, but also when he somehow _reached out_ with his thoughts, willing them to ripple and sway. It was akin to how the MJOLNIR responded to his commands through his neural interface, save that here there _was no interface_ ; it was just mind to machine.

Or what they thought was a machine. There was no real way to know for sure if the artifacts were machines as they understood them; Precursor neural physics was about as far ahead of Forerunner technology as Forerunner was human, even in 2552. But he was able to determine the function of a number of enigmatic artifacts, including a simple weather station of all things.

There was even one on Reach.

It was small, barely qualifying as an artifact in the Forerunners’ eyes; a spindly structure about as tall as the Spartan and just wide enough that he couldn't quite wrap his arms around it. “It’s a tether,” said John, rubbing a hand over the artifact to watch the surface ripple, “The tip of one at least. Goes all the way down to the core. The planet’s so different; with only this much exposed now, I can’t say I'm surprised the UNSC never found it.”

“A tether?” Venera repeated, “A tether for what? _To_ what? A star road to change the planet’s path?”

“...Unclear. It was never used. Planted, and then abandoned.”

The twins frowned, and so did John.

* * *

When they returned to Far Nomdagro, the Librarian approached him. “Prepare. We will depart soon for Maethrillian, and from there to Path Kethona. The Flood was able to mutate itself, change form; can you do the same?”

“I can give it a shot.”

It was a bitch and a half and painful as fuck, but he did it, adding the biomass she provided to become an admittedly small Promethean Warrior-Servant known as “Tranquility-Brings-Balance”. The Librarian had already fabricated all the necessary documentation to prove his existence and included him in the crew, now numbering eight; the official reason was for “proper” security, just in case, but also that he had a sixth sense for Precursor artifacts (which he did).

Maethrillian was _enormous_ , easily one of the largest Forerunner constructs he’d ever seen, at least in terms of surface area. The Ark was - would be - longer, wider, but this was a pretty much entirely artificial _planet_. The thought that some of the Didact’s Shield Worlds were bigger than this, that Onyx’s Dyson Sphere was bigger still?

Unreal.

Yet despite its size, the Forerunner capital was only sparsely populated - at least by biological beings. There were thousands of ancillae running everything, maybe even tens or hundreds of thousands, all working in concert to maintain the heart of the ecumene.

**It will not last. They will be ours if we but reach out our hand-**

_Shut up._

Compared to Maethrillian itself or even a few of the Council ships docked nearby, _Audacity_ looked tiny and plain, but here was the ship that had cost nearly as much to make as the capital itself. Here was the ship that would take Forerunners to Path Kethona again after ten million years - and one Flood-infected human for the very first time. He would have to be very careful not to accidentally infect anyone; didn't want to break his streak.

Yet as _Audacity_ sealed up and lifted off from the planet, he murmured to the Librarian, “On this journey, I’m probably about to travel further in one trip than any human in history.”

That actually earned a small smile. “Then let’s make it count.”

* * *

The long jumps were unsettling in many ways. John discovered very quickly that Forerunner means of stasis couldn't completely put him under; he was always at least partially aware, which was unfortunate because he’d been looking forward to a good long rest on their journey. There was something else, too, some undefinable sense as they passed through intergalactic space that told him it was _empty_ around them, no life or planets or stars or even diffuse gas. No shelter in the void.

There was just _nothing_. It made his hair stand on end, made him feel exposed, vulnerable.

After who knows how many “days” of half-sleep, he pushed himself out of the stasis bed, wrapped himself in his armor, and rose to wander the ship. _Audacity_ stirred with him, sent its monitors to tend to him, but he waved them off, coming to sit in the observation deck. There was really nothing to see; even for Forerunner ships, Slipspace was essentially pitch-black. He let his eyes slip closed, but that only made him more aware that he couldn't settle, that reality itself felt thin and fragile.

After a time, the ship woke the Librarian to come see him. She seemed unsettled as well, pale and almost sickly. “You feel it too?”

It was only half a question, but he nodded anyway. “ _It_ doesn't like it either.”

The Flood had been _very_ quiet since they’d left the Milky Way behind, quieter than it had ever been since before his arrival in this reality. If he didn't know any better, he would have said it was dead - or afraid.

“What do you think we’ll find in Path Kethona?” he asked instead, “Are you _expecting_ to find something?”

“Path Kethona is theorized to be the origin of the Flood,” she answered, “but also there are legends of a great scientific expedition made to the galaxy almost ten million years ago now.”

“Could those be connected? Could some of the returners have brought the Flood back with them?”

“I don't _believe_ so,” she frowned, “ _But_. When you say it like _that_... Humans supposedly first encountered the Flood as fine powder on strange, primitive and automated ships, ships that have since been destroyed so we only know of them through reports. Our technology at the time _would_ have been primitive, perhaps along the lines of human tech _then_ ; I’m almost surprised we were able to make the journey, if indeed the stories are true.

“And... the legends are all about a journey _to_ Path Kethona. There’s nothing about anyone who came _back_.”

* * *

They dropped out of Slipspace in the middle of the galactic void to let their racing realities reconcile, then jumped again, this time to the very edge of Path Kethona, the Large Magellanic Cloud. The others celebrated their success, but John was silent, nursing his own restorative and observing the cluster of stars.

There was something wrong here. Déjà was feeding him the data _Audacity_ was picking up, but his mind was tracing the shapes of distant Precursor structures, specifically at Boundless’s star in the Spider, the Tarantula Nebula. His strange, apparently Flood-borne ability had never lied to him yet, but he couldn't actually see them, either with his eyes or the _Audacity_ ’s sensors; it was all just empty space.

In addition, related but on a separate note, even though the Cloud wasn't nearly as large as the Milky Way, it still had an abundance of organic and inorganic resources, more than enough to create at least one small form of life, but the ship couldn't find anything at all. The entire galaxy was dead.

His skin prickled. **We have been here before.**

_Oh? Have we?_

**We fled from _there_ to _here_ , but we were followed with fire. So we sublimated and hid… and returned _there_ like _this_.**

_And what were we before we became ‘this’?_

**The Beginning of All Things.**

‘ _The Beginning.’_

**Yes. We were Movers and Shapers, Builders and Makers. No longer. There is peace in subjugation…**

_If you're gonna start that again, you can shut the fuck up._

John frowned. The Librarian noticed and moved to stand next to him, silently questioning. “I don't think we’re gonna like what we find here.”

* * *

 _Audacity_ moved deeper into the galaxy with additional shorter jumps, scanning the stars for any signs of life and zeroing in on Boundless’s star in particular. At last, they finally moved close enough for him to say, “There are Precursor structures nearby.”

One of the Builders, Keeper-of-Tools, looked up from the display, eyeing him with both suspicion and interest. “Are you sure?”

John nodded. He had Déjà call up a map and pointed to Boundless’s star. “ _Here_ , I think. A great many or a single very large one, for me to be feeling it this strongly.”

“There’s nothing there.”

“And that’s why it worries me.”

The ship jumped again to get closer, but the first things they found were not Precursor.

Ancient Forerunner probability mirrors were suspended in the outer reaches of the star system, five of them, colder than interstellar space. They were odd things - John at least had never seen their like - perfectly reflective but with no clear outline, light jumping both forward and back along its surface as they glided over it. “Blunt-force reconciliation,” Clearance-of-Old-Forests suggested to them, “for a series of massive portals.”

“‘Portals,’” John repeated, Déjà already running the numbers in the back of his mind, “For _what?_ ”

“The scientific expedition of legend,” one of the Builders, Keeper-of-Tools, answered, “We truly _have_ been here before. Glory to our ancestors!”

But John shook his head. “ _This_ is a scientific expedition - small ship, small crew, doing research. With such large mirrors, and so many, those portals would have been enormous - or enormously inefficient, which I find irreconcilable with the great knowledge and skill of the Builders throughout history. So _why_ so large and so many? Did they bring _half the ecumene_ with them? Or is there something more to this that we cannot see?”

* * *

The rest of the crew rested again as _Audacity_ moved them downstar. John remained awake, and so he was the first to see the changes deeper in the system as they crossed through some unseen veil.

Sure enough, he was right. A massive network of star roads, larger than anything seen in the Milky Way, linked dozens of planets around Boundless’s star, great bands of alien metal rippling and swinging through empty space. Some of them were no longer intact, had splintered along crystalline facets; even the Precursors hadn't been able to engineer balance adjustments so many thousands or even millions of years in advance. He didn't dare disturb them to see if they were active, but at his request _Audacity_ did get close enough to scoop up a small fragment of star road, about the size of a human finger; proof of their journey and the roads’ presence.

Then he woke the Librarian, and everyone else. They admired the star roads as well… until _Audacity_ found something else further in.

“Forerunner ships,” said Keeper, “I’m sure of it. I’ve seen their like as symbols in Builder rituals, but no one thought we would actually _find_ them. These are dead hulks, though; no activity that we can detect.”

The ships were clustered around the star roads, following their paths through the system. They were smaller than some that John had seen, more to the scale of UNSC ships than the Didact’s _Mantle’s Approach_ , but the fleet itself was even larger than the one that escorted _High Charity_ to Installation Zero-Five, at the time the largest fleet anyone had ever seen. This one numbered in the _hundreds_ of thousands, and every single ship was sleek and deadly, likely armed to the teeth.

The others were talking, debating amongst themselves, but John knew that he and the Librarian at least were thinking the same thing.

_This expedition wasn't “scientific”._

‘Blunt-force,’ the Spartan recalled, ‘Like the fleets they brought.’ As _Audacity_ moved closer, through the weaving star roads, he reached out the way he did with the Domain, with Precursor artifacts, searching for any access to the ships’ systems, even though they said there was no power. But it had been so long that he didn't pick up anything, and neither did the monitors they sent out to investigate.

Still, no species mounted so great an effort except to save itself.

Aloud, he said, “This fleet never came home - too expensive, perhaps, but it couldn't have been purely automated. What became of those who manned it? Are there lifeforms nearby?”

There were indeed. The ship’s sensors, their data processed by the Librarian’s ancilla, detected possible life around a small rocky planet around a star ten light-years away.

 _Audacity_ jumped closer. They were Forerunners, different but unmistakable, living primitively on a small planet close by. Keeper was dismayed, especially since they seemed to have all the resources available to advance and escape the planet, if they so desired. It was unfathomable to him that Forerunners would give up their technology.

Unbidden, a snippet of old human poetry floated to the forefront of John’s mind. “There is pleasure in the pathless woods…”

Byron. He had seen Halsey reading his poetry once, and asked to read it for himself. A brief interruption of his indoctrination, but she had indulged him. She had indulged all of the Spartan trainees a few vices, though nothing that would compromise them.

They surveyed the planet for many hours, then _Audacity_ provided seekers for a landing.

The Librarian chose John to come with her, and he walked slowly alongside, unarmed but still armored, unlike the Lifeshaper herself. As they entered one of the villages, he retracted his helm plates for a moment and sniffed the air. There was something about it that pricked at his senses, a scent on the wind that was more than what he actually smelled. It made him hum in thought before he let his armor close around him once more.

He was careful to be non-threatening to these strange people they had found, but he was ready to defend the Forerunner if they attacked. Yet they seemed just as interested in the new arrivals as the arrivals were in them, gathering relatively close and peering intently. John surveyed the group in return and couldn't help the thought that these Forerunners seemed to have more in common with humanity than their own kin.

The Librarian was approached by a female, and though the Spartan called her name in warning, she waved him off, letting the woman lead her closer to the main group, while a smaller one came to John and led him off the same. The groups merged, brought them into the village, then parted to allow an old female to approach the Librarian. She seemed to stare down the rest of the group, then grasped the Librarian’s hand.

The Forerunner bit her! In an instant, the Spartan was between them, but the female was already backing off. Chant-to-Green and Clearance-of-Old-Forests raced to retrieve them with the seekers and brought them all back to the landing site.

The Librarian refused treatment, though she did return to her armor, too interested in the reason behind the bite to be overly concerned with infection, as long as it was not the Flood.

It was not.

Night brought clarity, of a sort. At her request, the Spartan took the watch while the others rested, and he wasn't at all surprised when she came to him. “My ancilla tells me that the old female’s bite has released foreign microbes into my system,” she said, “I would like to inject some of these microbes into you, as well, if you will allow it.”

John was already retracting the armor from one of his arms to reveal bare skin. “Just to see what it does?”

“A little. Mostly I am curious to see if _it_ will help or hinder them, and if the changes will be the same.” John couldn't deny that he was curious as well; the microbes didn't seem to be making malicious alterations, so what _were_ they doing?

The monitor she used carefully drew some of her blood with a needle so small it was nearly invisible to the naked eye. Then it floated over to him and just as carefully injected it into him.

He barely felt the needle, but Déjà _did_ detect the microbes. The Flood seemed as interested in them as the Librarian was and let them drift on through his system unmolested, its focus on them intense. The ancillae compared notes, and found that the changes they worked were similar - somehow imparting knowledge as they worked into the brain, as if they were the biological version of the ancillae in question.

They returned to the village the next day, but now John felt a strange familiarity with the place, like he had when he returned to the Spartans’ old training grounds on Reach, right before the Fall. Echoes of memory through time - though now it was very different, another’s memory in his own mind.

No doubt the Librarian felt the same.

She was again without her armor, and the old female who had bitten her was waiting for them. “Do you understand me now?”

“Yes,” the Librarian answered, “Only, go slowly.” The words were awkward on her tongue.

She eyed the Spartan. “Do I need to bite him as well?”

“No. I have already done it. He hears and understands, probably better than I do.”

John inclined his head and offered a soft greeting.

She smiled briefly, then turned back to the Librarian, noting his obvious deference to her and rightly assuming that she was the leader. “The others fear you come to punish them.”

“After so many millions of years?”

“Has it been that long?”

“Yes. Do you remember those times?”

“Not personally. No one does separately, but we gathered together after you arrived, held hands and tried to reach back. Some of that I have passed to you; apologies for our methods.”

“You took a great risk.”

“I am old, no loss. But you are older still, if I may judge.”

“I have lived for thousands of years.” The Librarian offered her bare arms. “Do you need another?”

“No. What we have suspected has been confirmed. Did it take you that long to travel here…?” She frowned, seeming to search for the words. Of course their culture would have no need for words or knowledge of interstellar travel, so they had fallen by the wayside.

The Librarian seemed to understand that as well, because she shook her head. “Our journey was swift, but we did not expect to find anyone when we arrived. We have come to learn, not to punish.”

That made the old Forerunner relax. It seemed that she had feared punishment as well but let herself be reassured. “You understand now, and we seem to as well. I feel it inside; there are many things to pass on - old instructions, old bequests, communications… fuzzy and faded. You will likely understand better than us.”

The Librarian nodded. “What is your name?”

“Glow-of-Old-Suns.”

“That is very like our names. I am called the Librarian. And this is - John. He is from a kindred race, back home.” She gestured to him, then in the direction of the Milky Way.

“John.” Glow pronounced it better than most Forerunners. “Odd, but there are many odd things in the world. Like _your_ name. How came you by it, ‘Librarian’?”

“My teachers gave it to me when I was young. One of my greatest joys was traveling through great stores of knowledge.”

“We all carry stores of knowledge here, but there is another place I think you will find more useful. I will show you.”

* * *

Clearance and Chant followed in the second seeker while John flew the first, following Glow’s directions. They went low, slow and careful, so that she could keep track of where they were and where they were going.

The microbes continued their work. John could feel them improving his understanding of this world and its people, and from a glance he exchanged with the Librarian, he knew that she felt the same.

These people felt guilty. Or their ancestors had, so strongly that it was now genetic memory, rarely accessed, often sidelined, but still clearly present. The Flood felt almost pleased about that - but was less pleased now that it felt guilty itself.

Interesting. _Care to share?_

 **No. Not yet.** It seemed to quote something it knew, its knowledge somehow separate but also in addition to what he knew. **I speak to you of my intent, but intentions are eddies and whorls, and they change with the course of a stream. This stream becomes a river, and a cataract of logic and doubt. Who has the right to live? The light with the will to create me? Or dark with the will to consume? Sometimes might is right, and sometimes the lamb must submit to the lion. My convictions are tested, my intentions now are fey and strange. Should I pursue a pyrrhic choice, and rethink alliances, and choose a new philosophy? Right or might? Truly I do not know - but you will, soon enough. For this is where the cataract floods, and drowns the boon of higher ground.**

There was anticipation building under his skin. It was waiting for something, expecting something.

Glow directed them to a valley that they had noticed from orbit, a deep gorge full of yellow-gray haze; bacteria and spores feeding on sulfur - Forerunner, not Flood. John set them down, and the old Forerunner hopped out. “We must walk naked. You need to take off your shell to receive.”

John raised his eyebrows but told Déjà to do it. He tucked his armor away in the seeker, leaving him in the same loose undergarments as the Librarian.

Again, Clearance and Chant stayed by the seekers. John and the Librarian followed Glow, their feet kicking up clouds of spores. The Spartan listened while the other two spoke.

“We cannot hold all the memories of our ancestors,” Glow said as they went, “We do not want them - we wish to be ourselves, with our own memories. When we need the past - rare, but it does happen - we come here, and when we return, we have what we need.”

“A biological Domain?”

“I do not know that word. I have been here only once before, when I was young and there was a dispute of law and tradition. We came, and those in power saw that they were wrong. They stepped down and were replaced. No one defies what is written here.”

“And how far back does the memory go?”

“To the beginning. Days ago, we saw a light in the sky, and it was you. I have a memory…” She knelt and bowed to the cliffs. “The first of us marked the cliffs with whatever they had - rocks, sticks.”

John breathed in the spores, and wondered what changes _these_ would work in him, what dreams and memories they carried.

Glow got to her feet again and kept walking. Human and Forerunner followed.

The high walls of the cliffs ahead were covered with some kind of plant growth, akin to earth moss, but they were bright orange and moved over the surface of the wall, leaving etched symbols behind, kilometers of them. “These mosses are our kin,” Glow said of them, “They travel from one end of the valley to the other and back again. When wind and rain wipe the carvings away, they replace them, always the same.”

He had been injected later, but the knowledge came quicker for him than the Librarian. The Flood letting the microbes work faster?

Or was it something else?

He stepped forward even as the Librarian asked, “What do they mean?”

“They tell our stories. And the greater, older story. It’s coming a little slow in you, but it will come soon. He has already begun.”

John understood the symbols, but he read the tale in reverse while waiting for the Librarian. The Flood devoured the knowledge with eagerness, seeking… something. When she finally seemed ready, they went to the head of the valley, where the story of this tiny world began.

Ten million years ago, Forerunners had indeed traveled to Path Kethona. They came to finish what they started in the Milky Way - the obliteration of the race known as “Precursor”. They had been chased from the Milky Way to the Large Magellanic Cloud, where they were found again. Some Forerunners refused to finish the job and were abandoned by their comrades as traitors, but they at least had lived. Suicide was a crime against the Forerunner Mantle, but even so those who abandoned them had no more made it back than they had.

_we were followed with fire_

Ice filled his veins.

 _we sublimated and hid… and returned_ there _like_ this

His throat was dry, his eyes wide, but still he managed, “Librarian? There’s something you should know.”

**Now. At last you _see_.**


	5. Four: Founding of the Robot Nation

They returned to the Milky Way, but told no one of what they had discovered. Not even Nethalia or Venera or Kenera knew, though the Librarian did commission them to find John a crew, steadfast and trustworthy, while she arranged for even _one_ ship.

Silver-Moon-of-Fortitude more than came through for her in that respect. She hated the Master Builder more than ever, for reasons that she refused to share, and she acquired not one, not two, but _twenty_ design seeds for ships through a network of Builders that shared her enmity. They could not openly oppose the Forerunner in question - he had too much power - but they could aid and abet his enemies in secret and did so with relish.

Still, it took time to arrange for the seeds’ delivery to Epsilon Eridani, which they had taken to using for their staging ground. It was a relative backwater, at least compared to the rest of the ecumene, which meant they were mostly safe from the Master Builder’s spies. But John, Nethalia, and the twins used that time to scour the ecumene for trustworthy Forerunners, people who would use what they had to oppose the Flood.

The Lifeworkers came first. The Librarian knew her rate well and sifted through countless personnel records, choosing the best and brightest to join him, no matter how young or old. Lightness-of-Being was the youngest at the time; she was only a scant two years out from her second mutation, but both her imprints made her wise beyond her years.

The Warrior-Servants were next. Nethalia and the twins reached out to old contacts, even those now called “Builder Security”, sent feelers out through the whole of the ecumene and brought in fighters just as varied as the Lifeworkers before them. Shattered-Shields was a no-nonsense Forerunner who had served under the Didact’s command for millennia, one of the first who joined up, and she brought an _entire division_ of nearly _fifteen thousand_ Warrior-Servants with her, including Sharp-Wind-from-the-North, Sight-in-Darkness, and Empathy-for-Neutrality, along with an old but still strong supercarrier called _Blue Moon_.

The Miners followed after. As much as they needed fighters and healers, the fleet also needed people who knew planets, raw materials, how and where and when to acquire them, how to read entire star systems and know what was strong and what would crumble. There were many who pledged themselves to the fleet, but maintained their positions in the ecumene; though they were one of the most valuable rates after the Lifeworkers (can't Build if you don't have anything to Build _with_ ), theirs had always been one of the smallest, and they could not afford to abandon their duties until the Flood was on their very doorstep.

The Builders were the trickiest of all. Silver-Moon-of-Fortitude, her husband Peace-in-the-Deep-Sea, and her companions jumped at the chance to join up, to use their skills in opposition to the Master Builder and his patsies, but for those high in the ranks, they also could not leave - not without appearing suspicious, drawing even more attention than the Miners with their departure. Still, they pledged themselves as well and provided valuable intelligence about the inner workings of Builder politics, as well as new technology, updates for the design seeds, the better part of their ships yet unbuilt.

They would remain so until first contact. But the ancillae came before them, purpose-built for the fleet. No Contenders like Mendicant Bias and Offensive Bias after him, but they did receive two metarch-class ancillae named Shadow of All Night Falling and Light from Distant Suns, along with a handful of others to work in concert with them.

The Librarian, meanwhile, threw herself and her team into research on the Flood and the Conservation Measure, but John could see in her heart of hearts that she had abandoned any hope of finding a cure. Resistance, perhaps, maybe even partial immunity if whatever gods existed decided to have mercy on them, but there would be no cure for this nightmare.

But as the indexing of species began in earnest, a thought floated forward. He approached the Librarian, but she seemed to already know.

“You want other species for your fleet as well,” she said, “Not just Forerunners.”

He was surprised but nodded in agreement. “Other people - other species - have different insights, tactics, different ways of seeing things that we _all_ might find valuable. The Graveminds will be focusing on Forerunners, built on a primarily Forerunner base; it might give us at least a _little_ bit of an edge. But how did you…?”

“Believe it or not, someone else suggested it before you did. Come and see. There are people who would like to meet you.”

* * *

_ Dragons _ .

Fucking _dragons_.

His eyebrows nearly shot into his hairline when he found thousands of dragons - wingless, bipedal, but unmistakable - tending countless nests of eggs and younglings with the aid of juveniles of their species, under the careful eye of the Librarian’s Lifeworkers. They were being held in a temporary facility, pending the completion of the Ark, but they had made it into a home - better than the Forerunners’ attempts at duplicating other species’ habitats, at least.

Some of them looked up towards him and the Librarian before they had even entered their area; they knew they were there, but waited patiently for them to come visit. When the human finally stepped into the habitat, one of the dragons - the _Gultanr_ , they called themselves - rose and came to meet them.

Déjà translated for him. “I am Ferial,” said the dragon, “Last Primas Uperbia of the Gultanr before the End. We have come to aid you in your fight against That _Thing_ , if you will have us.”

“You know what’s coming?” John only half-asked. He could almost _see_ it in her mind.

She knew, but she confirmed it aloud anyway. “We do. All of my people know. It is…” She shuddered, and her spikes quivered. “It is why we have done what we have done. As a people, we competed amongst ourselves to find whose abilities are the strongest, and when the Mother came-” She gestured to the Librarian. “-we who were strongest brought all our people’s young to the Safe Place, so that our people may continue after the End. Those who were left behind will commit suicide, one and all, to deny the Enemy our gift. Though we must also tend our young and teach the Ways to the new generation, we who are here and grown wish to aid you in your fight.”

That seemed to surprise the Librarian as well. These ‘Gultanr’ knew about the Flood, despite their comparatively primitive culture - they had technology, some limited spacefaring - and they knew about the _Forerunners_ , too, and the Librarian in _specific_? Despite having never actually encountered _any_ of them before?

“Your ‘gift’ gave you this knowledge?” When she nodded, he asked, “What _is_ your gift?”

She grinned, or something like it. “We call it ‘predictive resonance’. Our people have some small ability to see the future. Rarely anything concrete, more like intuition, but the greatest of our resonators have been known to receive true visions on occasion.” She sobered. “It is how we know about the Thing. We have seen its coming. Even now, it draws perilously near.”

** And distance gives false hope of safety, but for the grim tidings this messenger bears - _the enemy is almost upon us._ **

_ Unless you're gonna help, shut up. _

Ferial looked him dead in the eye. “We know you carry that same Sickness within you. We who are here are not afraid - we will take your Sickness inside ourselves and join your Hive, give you our gift, so that we _all_ may fight with equal footing against this Enemy.”

The idea had occurred to him before. The Flood’s armies worked in concert, all controlled from a central intelligence, the Gravemind, within a certain region of space; if they could have that same advantage... But he hadn't thought someone would just walk up to him and say, essentially, ‘hey, I want you to infect me.’ He glanced at the Librarian, who gestured; ‘Your infection, your choice.’

Then he turned back to Ferial. “You know that once it’s done, there’s no going back?”

She nodded and held out her hand, scaly hide bare. The Spartan sighed, then reached out. They gripped one another’s forearms, and he let his talons sink into her flesh.

The Flood reared its ugly head the instant the infection penetrated her brain, Ferial’s awareness appearing alongside his own, and it reached for what it perceived to be a weaker mind. But both of them turned on it at once; Ferial “hamstrung” it while John “punched” it in the face, then together they threw it back into the hole it came from. Her presence actually made it easier to keep it down, and when they both “resurfaced”, they found themselves grinning at each other.

“I think this might just work out.”

* * *

The rest of the adult Gultanr followed their Primas Uperbia, their elected queen. Though for the most part he worked hard to let them keep their thoughts to themselves, John still got unavoidable snippets of their lives, their histories, folded into his own - memories of places he’d never been, foods he’d never eaten, families he’d never had. He also knew their languages now, could speak to them properly, without the aid of a translator.

But more importantly, they communicated mind to mind essentially instantly, even halfway across the galaxy from each other (they checked). Somehow, something was _different_ with them, and more than just the obvious. Still, it took time to figure out how to work together, but they did it.

Other species followed: the Lituni, a cat-people from the Gultanr’s neighboring system; the Tuavan, a telepathic bat-like species, with the telepathy in question born out of their sonar; the Adonte, a race akin to the “Grays” of Earth stories; and the Saavaasi, essentially a Naga-like race of half-humanoid snakes. John also wanted to pick up some humans and some Sangheili, but there was no telling who they could safely take, whose descendants would be those he knew - if indeed they would be born at all now. He let them and all the other Covenant peoples be, with reluctance.

Ironically, the first to join the fleet were the last to get infected: the Forerunners. The twins, then Shattered-Shields, everyone else, and last of all Nethalia.

* * *

“It is your choice. If this is not what you want, then do not force yourself. There are other ways.”

“I know that.” Nethalia continued to stare at his outstretched hand, Flood talons on full display. Her helm was opaque to his eyes, her breathing even, but Déjà told him her heart rate was elevated, her hormones signaling stress and anxiety despite her own ancilla’s efforts to keep her calm.

At last, she said, “My wife was taken by the Flood during the Human-Forerunner War.”

John stayed silent, let her speak, but he did not retract his hand.

“It was early on, before whatever the humans did that made it retreat, and it happened right in front of me, _because_ of me. We were trying to contain an infestation on one of our outer worlds, buy time for an evacuation - working _with_ the human forces, even, to sterilize what we could - but it was too much. We were falling back, and falling back - being _driven_ back, and… Two of the combat forms attacked me. One jumped at my face, the other at my waist, and they knocked me off my feet. I thought my time had come.

“My wife saved me. Kicked them off of me. But she left herself vulnerable… and the Flood took advantage.”

“It always does,” he agreed quietly. Both of them knew that all too well.

They sat in silence for several long minutes. Then, at last, Nethalia retracted her armor and laid her hand in his.

He did not ask if she was sure.

* * *

It took longer than he would have liked to coordinate their minds, figure out how to all work together. There were previously hidden grudges to settle, secrets that had to come out, traumas to soothe. But not all of it was bad; they shared knowledge as well, information exchanged at the speed of thought, memories of family and friends, culture and community, history and happier times than what was to come.

The Librarian and her Lifeworkers continued their studies of the Flood. In secret, the rest of the Infected Forerunners continued their work as well, mindful of their own infections and careful not to spread it.

The infection proved a boon, though; the Miners and Builders got quite clever about concealing requisitions for the fleet - swarms of seekers, harriers, hunter-killers, to supplement their armada. They were still small - their actual fighting force barely topped eighty thousand all told, with only twenty ships; the ecumene had more than a million times both those numbers - but they hoped their numbers would grow as the Flood threat was realized.

It was realized sooner than they would have liked.


	6. Five: The Beginning of Judgement

John still slept on occasion. It was more natural than letting his armor do all of the necessary functions for him, and felt better, especially since Déjà had no real frame of reference or even ability to process the sheer _volume_ of information and activity that the Hive had. They knew the Flood could be coming at any time, and they all were _scrambling_ to get in position, to save as many people as possible.

There was so much they _didn't know_ , though. They knew “Seaward” - G 617 g - would be first presumed contact, but not when in specific, or if it was from there that the Flood spread to the rest of the ecumene or just the first of many Flood incursions on several planets, or when the Flood first escaped the planet and started its run through the galaxy.

But whatever else may have been true, John was still a living, breathing human being (sort of) and he needed rest. Sleeping was weird now, though; he still dreamed, but he could also hear the rest of the Hive communicating amongst themselves, and remembered their conversations and the information they generated when he woke up.

The twins were trying to get into something with Niken and Azizura, one of the Lituni, and Nethalia was telling them off; John listened with mixed amusement and exasperation.

There was only a moment’s warning. Just the barest sense akin to being dragged underwater, right before the vision struck.

_ The ship hit the ground at such a high velocity that it nearly burst apart, digging a trench only a few dozen meters long but spewing debris for hundreds of meters and belching thick smoke into the sky. _

_ The closest people to the crash site were a family of farmers, Forerunners choosing to live the simple life on the very edge of the galaxy; an unconventional choice for such an advanced society, but a pleasant one for those who wished to labor - or live naturally in luxury. The matriarch rushed to the very edge of the debris field, calling in Digon and Jagon to any survivors, the patriarch right behind her, while their kids herded their animals away to a safe distance. _

_ The animals didn't need much encouragement; they were bellowing and stamping their feet, streaming into their pens and pressing against the far fence like they wanted to keep going. Their eyes rolled, wide and red with fright. _

_ The kids closed the pens behind the animals and ran back to the crash site, calling for their parents. They had disappeared into the burning wreckage, searching for survivors; if they had found anyone, their voices couldn't be heard over the sounds of the fire and the groans of the failing superstructure. _

_ The ship wasn't one they recognized, not that it really resembled anything now. “Mom!” one of the children cried, weaving slowly, carefully, through the burning wreckage. She was the oldest of all the children, but even so she was still a Manipular untried, born on Seaward and wary of outsiders. _

_ It wouldn't save her. _

_ Something moved in the wreckage. “Mom?” she called, “Mom!” _

_ It  _ was _her mother - what was left of her. Her head was tilted to one side, eyes glassy and unseeing, jaw slack with bloody spittle dripping from her mouth. The Infection Pod had already begun to assimilate itself into her flesh, cutting its way into her chest cavity._

_ The combat form howled and leaped at the child, who screamed and tried to run. _

_ Too late. _

John jerked awake, the taste of alien blood on his tongue.

All of them had seen, same as him. Finally, Ferial spoke. ‘It has begun,’ she said quietly.

[We’re leaving,] said the Spartan, equally quiet, [Now. _Right now_. Everyone onboard.]

* * *

By the time they arrived at Seaward, Wharftown was already overrun. There were combat forms everywhere, chasing a handful of survivors through the streets.

John led the deployment, his mind still linked with the bridge crew’s to give an overhead view of the planet. Their hard light drop pods hit the ground at terminal velocity, but not one of the occupants felt it. Then the pods dissolved, releasing the Spartan and fifty Warrior-Servants into the Flood’s midst, along with half a dozen brave Lifeworkers.

The combat form in front of him had once been a child - the same child from the vision.

She wasn't a child anymore. He lifted his suppressor and fired a short burst into her chest, where her own Infection Pod had burrowed in. It popped, and she dropped, a puppet with its strings cut. Even as he turned his suppressor on another combat form, he dropped one hand from the gun, clenched his fist to activate the built-in plasma sword, and cut the body in two, preventing it from being easily retaken to rejoin the fight.

There were already carrier forms staggering through the streets. John hit one with a fully-charged boltshot round, then rapidly switched back to his suppressor and gunned for the Infection Pods it released.

Someone fled through down a side street and stumbled into him; he almost turned his gun on her, but it was just a frightened old woman - for now. One of the Warrior-Servants scooped her up and nearly threw her to another further back, who passed her on like they were a bucket brigade.

The first transports were landing behind the thin defensive line they had set up around the centermost courtyard in the town, their own guns firing at the Flood to cover the flight of the few remaining citizens. The Flood had no weapons of their own to speak of, save their long tentacles and virulent flesh, which put them at a disadvantage - for now. John fired and reloaded as fast as he could, his mind and eyes somehow automatically tracking the enemy Flood.

The Flood infection inside him was almost ominously silent, had been ever since their return from Path Kethona, but it was still a bottomless well of hunger, of wordless whispers. **Who will notice if we take a few? Our Hive? Our Infected? We can turn their minds, erase their memories; their continued existence is at _our_ forbearance with them. They cannot speak if we do not allow it, and this will soon be a Hive of the Other; who will know?**

_ What part of “shut the fuck up” do you not understand? _

The last of the survivors was nearly thrown onboard the lead transport - a Manipular who had somehow survived through all the chaos and made it to them - and it lifted off for the _Fleet_ , Lifeworkers on board to tend to any injuries and decontaminate them as thoroughly as possible. John and the Warrior-Servants started falling back toward their own transports, still working to hold the attention of the Flood to keep them from attacking the transports.

At last, they were away. _Worldquake_ , the ship that had brought their Miners in, had been converted to a destroyer, and now it moved in close, taking aim at Seaward’s only population center.

John didn't see her fire, instead saying, [Where’s the Primary Pioneer Group? There was supposed to be one here, looking for additional energy sources for the ecumene.]

‘Gone. The Flood took it before it reached Wharftown.’

A visual appeared on his HUD. A small camp was perched on the very edge of a cliff, midway between the crash site and Wharftown. It was completely empty - _completely_ empty. [And how’d they get here? Where are their ships?]

Déjà pulled the records; they’d had three small but Slipspace-capable corvettes, fully stocked with supplies, weapons, ammunition. All three were gone, no sign of them anywhere near the planet.

They had saved about eight percent of the planet’s total population - better than zero - but even so, the Flood had escaped.

[The Forerunner-Flood War has begun.]


	7. Six: Tears Shed by the Stars

John _despised_ waiting. It was the antithesis of everything a Spartan was; they were meant to _move_ , to _fight_ , to _defend_ , not sit idle in Slipspace. Especially now.

The Flood had confirmed presences in fifteen star systems. _Fifteen_. It had been four Earth weeks since Seaward, and of those fifteen systems, ten were completely overrun. He suspected that only one or two had actually been the initial vectors from Seaward; the rest were most likely either ships hijacked from the planets in question or unwitting evacuees who inadvertently brought it with them, not knowing to quarantine and decontaminate themselves.

[No more stopping to drop off people we save. Either they stay with us for the time being, or we call someone to come get them.]

‘Fair enough.’

The _Fleet_ \- now officially designated the _Fleet of Shadows_ , which John thought was dumb; why couldn't they be plain old Battlegroup Alpha or something - had split into two groups, which were en route to two of the five not-yet-completely-overrun systems. The stealth corvettes had gone ahead to scout out the situation while the rest of the ships finished loading up and followed.

It wasn't looking good. The corvettes were doing their damnedest to shoot down every ship with a Flood presence onboard while still maintaining their stealth, but there were more ships than they had guns. The Flood itself had taken control of more than a few of the planetary defenses, and they were shooting down _non_ -infected ships, their accuracy getting better by the second.

[There’s at least one Gravemind forming somewhere in each of those systems. Focus fire on that; it’ll retreat to defend itself, might give some of them the chance to escape.]

‘Understood.’

The two battlegroups dropped out of Slipspace only a few hours later. They were momentarily dead in space as they reconciled from their journey, but then they powered back up. _Gift of Life_ and _Blue Moon_ launched _swarms_ of unmanned fighters in their respective systems as they drew near the infected planets, their cruiser escorts firing on escaping ships and the Flood infected ones that came their way.

[Drop us in the largest population center, Shadowfall. The Flood will be drawn to all the people.]

‘Understood.’

There was a distant shriek in the other system. ‘Found it! Under the capital’s council building!’

‘Acquiring targeting solution. Stand clear.’

_ Fog of War _ fired on their system’s Gravemind the same instant John and the other Warrior-Servants were dropped to the surface.

The atmosphere was already beginning to change, clouds of spores starting to roll out from underground tunnels throughout the city and the planet. Most Forerunners were insulated from that in their armor, but if that was breached, all it would take was a few active spores and in a matter of hours, maybe less, that person would be completely overtaken.

The pod dissolved around him. This time there was an even greater disparity between the number of Flood and their own forces, more civilians around them. He left his suppressor on his back, instead activating his plasma swords and cleaving combat forms in two. He had no real skill or style - but then again, neither did the Flood (yet), so he made it work.

He ducked under the swinging tentacle of a combat form and sliced it in half, stamping on an Infection Pod trying to skitter past him. Another combat form, head lolling grotesquely back, leaped at him, bearing him to the ground, though not for long. Heart pounding, he swung both swords at once and split its torso apart, then kicked the remains away, rolling back to his feet.

All around him were Warrior-Servants, fighting and snarling and struggling to hold the courtyard against the oncoming tide. ‘“The Shaping Sickness” may be a truer name,’ said Empathy-for-Neutrality, physically grabbing a combat form and throwing it as hard as he could back into its comrades, sending dozens sprawling, ‘but “the Flood” is definitely more appropriate! There’s just no end to them!’

[And there never will be.]

Echoes of the Gultanr’s intuition whispered, and John ducked. His armor registered the Flood tentacle overhead, and he shoved both of his swords back into its torso, then twisted around to throw it to the ground.

There was another right behind it. Its tentacles curled around his forearms, its strength struggling against his own, and its mouth fell open. **“You. Through the glass, darkly-”**

_ “Is that all you all can say?!” _ John snarled and tore himself free, then cut the combat form in half from head to toe, along with another running at him from behind it.

A Manipular ran past him, crying, and he swiped a sword through the Infection Pods pursuing her; they popped before they even made contact with the blade, the high temperature of the plasma superheating and expanding their internal gases such that they exploded.

Behind him, the first transports landed to start evacuations, their swarm of protective fighters covering the city so thickly that the sky went almost completely dark. All of them were remote-piloted by the Hive; they had discovered very quickly that John’s innate ability to mentally interface with technology did not only extend to the Domain - or to himself. One of the many pilots directed a lance of Phaetons to streak past overhead and target the Flood further back on the street. The number of survivors was dropping, while the number of Flood was growing - swiftly.

Without a word, John directed the Infected to start falling back toward the LZ, hurling as many grenades as he dared into the waves of Flood. Bodies and body parts flew in all directions, but the Flood just kept coming. Adults, children, male, female - all of them had been taken equally by the parasite; what was left of the people the Forerunners had worshipped as gods and yet destroyed was unrelenting and unmerciful.

One of the Warrior-Servants went down, overwhelmed, and Infection Pods pierced his combat skin, seeking flesh.

The instant it made contact, John knew where the Gravemind was - but it also knew where _he_ was. Even as two of the destroyers - _Zealous Champion_ and _Ring of Winter_ \- swung around to target the enemy, all of the combat forms turned and charged him, shrieking battle cries. They even abandoned their attempts to chase down the uninfected Forerunners in favor of burying him under their bulk.

The Spartan hit the ground hard but barely felt it, more intent on the Flood. They were merging together over him, almost like the Gravemind was trying to form a second version of itself or even a spore mountain on top of him, trying to crush him - his resistance - under its bulk.

His plasma swords were still active.

He cut himself an opening amidst the howls of the Flood and heaved himself out even as the mass started to squeeze; long tentacles pursued and tried to drag him back. He cut them up too and lunged backward. The other Infected were similarly targeted, but most of the enemy Gravemind’s focus was on him.

_ You wanna play, you son of a bitch? All right. Let’s play. _

* * *

He wasn't sure how long he fought, only that he was careful to one sword close at all times, regardless of which hand wielded it. The other swung wide through the ranks of combat forms, sending them sprawling and building a wall of bodies brick by brick that blocked the path. The streets were slick with blood and viscera, and he himself was soaked in it. He’d lost count of the number of - _ex-people_ that he’d cut down; the Flood wasn't into Pure Forms yet, but it would be soon.

‘Spartan, we’re ready!’

[Have a major decon ready; all of us are _covered_.] He was exhausted as well; Déjà was keeping him on a steady drip of stimulants and painkillers to keep him on his feet.

‘Understood.’

John started falling back toward the LZ one step at a time. The Flood kept coming over the wall of corpses, kept adding more, making it thicker, deeper with bodies. Some of the Warrior-Servants behind him started attacking them long-range as they came over, covering his retreat even as he covered the first of their transports.

The _Zealous Champion_ fired again, this time destroying on an infested ship trying to escape, but for every ship they shot down, another one made it out to Slipspace, seeking more worlds to consume.

The moment he came in arms’ reach, one of the Lifeworkers onboard emptied what was essentially a bucket of bleach over his head, cleaning and at least partially disinfecting him at the same time. He jumped onboard and accepted an Incineration Cannon from Ferial, turning to fire one of the charges into a knot of Flood running for the transport as it lifted off. They dissolved into golden flakes of data, but he didn't see; the transport had already gained enough altitude that the physical forms were no longer a threat.

It was the admittedly-sparse defense system that was the problem. One of the long guns swung around to target them as they lifted into range.

John cast his mind into the local systems. Even though it had the biomass, the Gravemind was still reorganizing itself after they’d destroyed the first one, letting him steamroll over it just long enough for the gun to misfire, taking out one of its own ships. The Spartan retreated immediately, but by that time the last transport was already out of range.

* * *

John stripped out of his armor and dropped it into the decon station, heedless of his nakedness. They had made it back without incident - but they had rescued less than one percent of the planet’s population. And who knew how many of them would still be alive at the end of the war.

None of the deceased were anyone he knew, no one he was close to, but he felt the _Fleet_ ’s grief as they started glassing the planet. It was different from what the Covenant did; _they_ just vitrified _everything_ in one fell swoop, while this just vaporized organic matter - Flood biomass. Cleaner, but no less devastating and sadly not feasible to implement on a large scale; only their battleships, _Perfect Storm_ and _Call of Midnight_ , had both the power and precision to do it, and designing and building them had taken a long time - too long.

Too little too late.

The Spartan stepped into the decon shower and let his head fall forward to rest against the wall as the liquid poured down over him. His eyes saw something else, though, looking through the security system down at the planet - covered in thousands of years’ worth of civilization - as it burned.

When he was clean - and his armor was too - he went down to observe the survivors. Most of them were silent, numb, but there were some whose grief couldn't be quieted even by their ancillae. The Lifeworkers were moving among them, getting identifying information from all the ancillae, reuniting families where they could (few enough, but still joyous reunions), and tending to injuries as they were processed.

[Alert the Librarian. See if she can have even just one team on standby for us to shift survivors deeper into the ecumene.]

‘Of course, Spartan.’


	8. Seven: Despair’s Quickening

The Ecumenical Council kept word of it suppressed, but the Flood spread. And it spread, and spread, and spread. World after world fell, and Precursor artifacts started coming alive in the heart of Flood-controlled territory, now called “Burns”. The _Fleet_ had only encountered the artifacts twice so far, star roads both times, but John had been able to “see” the Gravemind manipulating them, like the strings of a marionette. He had waited until the last minute, then reached out and “snipped” the “strings”, took control of them himself and redirected the artifacts for just long enough for the _Fleet_ and the others with it to escape.

Even so, it grew more and more difficult. It felt like a shadow of the Flood was spreading through the fabric of space-time itself, making Slipspace grow dark and strange, difficult to traverse - nearly impossible for Forerunner ships if they outpaced the _Fleet_ or fell behind. In the same way that they were able to redirect the Precursor artifacts, it seemed that whatever that darkness was, they were immune to it, projected a field of some sort that nullified the Flood’s influence.

But that didn't mean they were _entirely_ immune.

* * *

‘How the _fuck_ are you still alive?’

[Training. Quiet.]

John ignored the rest of his Infected’s whispers, focusing on blending in, smoothing his mental presence to almost nothing. It wasn't exactly something he’d had experience with, but drawing on his training, the sniper’s stillness that Linda had mastered better than any other, gave him something like it, something to work with.

This wasn't the first time he’d been trapped behind enemy lines, but this was probably the most perilous of all time. The Gravemind knew he was here, somewhere on the planet, but not specifically where, and it was hunting him. His own Flood presence was writhing in his mental grip, desperately trying to escape, trying to reveal him to the enemy Gravemind, spitting and snarling. The rest of the _Fleet_ was helping keep it chained up, but it was fighting hard, spitting the foulest curses and threats against them and everything they loved.

The Gultanr at least did not heed it. Their people were long gone, long safe.

Qe’rid and another of the Tuavan, Qi’krith, communicated without words, just images - _Knife in the Dark_ was coming to get him, but to avoid the attention of the Gravemind, it had dropped out of Slipspace well away from the star system. On impulse engines, it would take five days to reach him, but once he was on board, the ship could do an emergency jump away on a randomized vector a la the Cole Protocol. John acknowledged, also without words, and kept walking.

He was high in the mountains in the far north of the planet, relying on the extreme cold to keep most of the Flood away, though he could sense pursuit behind him, closer than he liked. He could feel the icy chill even through his armor as he trudged through the snow, but it was doing its job - for as long as it could, anyway. The atmosphere was changing rapidly, spore mountains spewing huge clouds of particles into the sky. He didn't know how much longer the thin protection of this planet’s Arctic would last.

The Spartan stilled when the Gravemind’s awareness swept past again. **Where are you, brave little warrior? Your defiance amuses me; I shall enjoy adding you to the whole. I will make you stronger, better - join your voice with mine, and sing victory everlasting…**

When it moved on, he did the same, but he also noticed something odd about the snow up on the slope on the sides of the valley ahead. [Déjà.]

‘Scanning.’ After a moment, the ancilla came back with, ‘The snowpack has several weak layers, likely due to the Flood incursion. The atmospheric changes initially caused a slight melting, but subsequent alterations have resulted in higher accumulations faster than usual.’

[Show me.]

She laid a map on his HUD, and he broke away from the center line towards one side of the valley. The ascent was nearly sheer, but he did it anyway, zigzagging up the cliff face. The Flood was good at jumping, not climbing, but this was a leap not even they could make. The combat forms followed far below.

John dispensed with stealth for the moment and activated one of his plasma swords, changing the color to a deep violet. As a result, the blade was so hot that it didn't even need to make contact with the snow to sublimate it, concealing him in gouts of steam, but he kept the tips of the sword lowered anyway as he started sprinting along the plane.

‘Spartan…?’

[ _Quiet_.]

He was almost halfway across when he heard the first cracks start, and he picked up the pace, starting to angle up and away from the better part of the snowpack towards a ridge of stone dividing this valley from the next.

He scrambled up onto the rock just in time. There was a deafening _whump_ behind him that rose to a roar, and he turned to see what seemed like half the mountain sliding away down the valley. As if to add insult to injury, the seismic shifts the _massive_ avalanche caused set off another one from the other side of the valley, sending a tsunami of snow rolling down the slopes, burying the army of Flood that had been coming up behind him.

The Gravemind shrieked somewhere in the distance. John allowed himself a short laugh, then scrambled over the ridge into the next valley.

* * *

In a matter of hours, the weather turned to a whiteout, doubtless a result of the Gravemind’s rage. John wasn't _too_ worried; it had been focused on pursuing him rather than fanning out to search the area manually - a little bit of laziness from it that he hadn't expected but took full advantage of. It would take it hours more, maybe even days to get troops back in the area to search for him, but even Forerunner ships couldn't fly in this weather and the combat forms would only last for so much time with their breached armor.

But even with his armor and its warming, the cold cut through to the bone. [Team, better insulation in the future. Déjà, how deep is this?]

‘Six meters.’

[Any weakness?]

‘Likelihood of avalanche is three percent.]

[Good enough.]

John started to dig. Despite the snow continuing to pile itself upon him and the wind shrieking around him, he was able to make a trench with roughly his dimensions, and then proceeded to bury himself in it.

Now that he was out of the wind (save for an air hole for circulation), it was much warmer, and with his armor’s life support and the snacks he carried, he would be able to survive long enough for the _Fleet_ to reach him.

He hoped.

The Flood would come, sure as death. But whether it would _find_ him… that was another story.

* * *

The vision struck without warning, same as the last one.

_Halo._

_The first Array, the full complement of twelve was all together in one place. But they were splitting up into two groups. Seven of the rings were still lined up, one after the other, but five of them had separated, formed a pentagram in space, their background a terrible black emptiness, as if all the stars directly behind them had been snuffed out. Energy was building at the center of each of the rings – they were preparing to fire all at once –_

Then, voices that weren't voices, ancient and alien: _The enemy is almost upon you. Closing in from all sides, moving faster than the light it snuffs with its passage; time echoes with the news of destruction. History winding back upon itself. Waves of an army march your way in unison; suffering and corruption are its battle cries._

_Wake up, Spartan._

* * *

**Where are you, little warrior? I have something for you.**

John opened his eyes but maintained his silence.

**Won’t you come and see?**

Bit by bit he inched free of his trench.

The valley - what was left of it - was carpeted in Flood. The Gravemind seemed to be keeping them warm by sheer active volume, raising the local temperature by several degrees. But there was something…

[Déjà, give me something with a scope.]

She pulled the data and energy from his armor and materialized a binary rifle out of golden flakes of hard light. He squinted through the scope.

The Flood had found survivors. Just three, an adult and two children from the looks of it, as yet uninfected, but it made him freeze.

A hostage situation. He _hated_ hostage situations.

The Gravemind wasn't fast enough to pinpoint his location, but it sensed the brief disturbance of his calm. **Now you see. Come and get them, if you dare.**

John didn't need Déjà to run the numbers for him. The odds of successfully retrieving all three of them before the Flood could take them and snap the trap shut around him were miniscule at best. The odds of them all surviving to see extraction were even smaller.

‘Chief-!’

[ _Quiet_.]

He pushed himself up out of the trench and moved along the ridge, looking back occasionally to check his position. The Gravemind seemed to sense him moving away, because it rumbled, **Where are you going, little warrior? You have no way of escaping me, and no way of rescuing them if you run. There is no realm, no barren moon where I will not find you in the end. This-**

While he wasn’t Linda, John was still a Spartan.

The first shot caught both Manipulars at once, one through the head, the other through the torso, and their bodies dissolved into flakes of hard light. The Flood shrieked, momentarily stunned - clearly the Gravemind had not had his full measure, had not expected him to fire on the hostages - but whoever they were, the remaining Forerunner was either without hope or without fear. They took advantage of the momentary disruption, but instead fleeing, trying to hide from him or the Flood, the Forerunner _ran towards him_ , arms outstretched.

A bigger target.

John shot them through the upper torso with the second round. There was the briefest transmission on all open channels - _“Thank you”_ \- before the Forerunner fell back, already disappearing.

But he had given away his position, and now the Gravemind took advantage, roaring and flinging combat forms after him. John threw down the rifle, turned, and ran.

* * *

By the time _Knife in the Dark_ arrived, the planet was completely overrun, and the enemy Gravemind had put the planetary defense grid on high alert for anyone who would try to extract him, ready to fire on a moment’s notice. John could have transferred his consciousness away at any time and just left this body behind, but it seemed to understand that he had some sentimental attachment to this one – his first body, his native form.

‘Well shit.’

[Abort extraction and bring in _Ring of Winter_.]

‘Spartan-’

[ _Do it._ ]

Nethalia read the path of his thoughts and nearly hissed, ‘ _I cannot in good conscience order an orbital bombardment on your position._ You are the heart of us-’

[And this is only flesh, with our nature easily repaired and reformed. It has served its purpose, and now it will serve to lure this Gravemind into a trap, letting us destroy it and weaken its hold on this sector. The rest of the galaxy cannot wait for us to fight our way through. Now, abort extraction and bring in _Ring of Winter_.]

‘…As you command.’


	9. Eight: The World’s Demise

The _Fleet_ only found out that the Didact had been retrieved from his Cryptum after the fact. Many of them were of the opinion that that was _long_ overdue, but just as fast, they learned he had been lost in Flood-controlled space because of the Master Builder.

There were shrieks of wrath and snarls of vindication throughout the fleet - at last, the Master Builder’s treachery was too great for the Ecumenical Council to ignore.

John tried not to show his wrath in his voice. The Librarian was just the messenger. “What do you want with us, then?”

_ “Can you spare a ship? Before this…” _ She failed to find the words to encompass her own rage and grief, so she continued, _“he imprinted a Manipular. Not my intent, but I have hopes that it will be enough. This first-form is being called before the Supreme Mantle Court to bear witness on behalf of the Didact. It is hoped that after, he will be able to assume the Didact’s mantle and use his memories to lead the defense.”_

“Tell us where.”

* * *

John and a few of the Hive arrived on the home world of Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting in _Keeper of Secrets_ , another of their stealth corvettes. The planet wasn't far from the Orion Complex, but it wouldn't be too much longer, maybe a few years tops, before the Flood arrived.

If something worse didn't happen first. The Gultanr were reporting that the end was perilously near, but _how_ near _exactly_ they couldn't quite say.

John hoped it was sooner rather than later. Burns covered more than half of Forerunner-controlled space, more than _half of the galaxy_ , and the ancilla called Mendicant Bias had gone missing over forty years ago - _along with a Halo ring_.

No one had told him the ancilla had been brought online, much less that he had disappeared, until it was too late. Through the Librarian and her contacts, the Forerunner fleets had been instructed to assume that Mendicant Bias had been subverted by the Flood. They also had been ordered to use a modified form of the Cole Protocol (though it wasn't actually called that): on the rare occasion they were able to escape the Flood, they jumped on randomized vectors, but they did so in a pattern of at least three quick jumps before turning for Forerunner space, they were _absolutely forbidden_ from going _anywhere_ near the capital or the Ark without special dispensation, and self-destructing their ships with all their crew was better than being captured by the Flood.

He disembarked from the _Keeper_ alone, leaving the others onboard to keep the engines hot. With so many worlds falling to the Flood, they might need to bug out fast.

John had seen more impressive Forerunner homes, but he disregarded it, instead presenting his credentials to the facility’s primary ancilla. The Librarian had made it clear that Bornstellar’s father was far from pleased about his son being imprinted by the Didact or being called to testify on his behalf.

He entered the house and found that the family was already waiting. The one who must have been Bornstellar looked down at him; he recognized the echoes of the Didact in his appearance and demeanor.

And also when he spoke. “Spartan. The Mantle would be better served if you were on the front line fighting rather than here as a simple courier.”

“I am aware. But it came as a request from the Librarian herself.” John swept an arm back towards the ship. “ _Keeper of Secrets_ awaits your inspection.”

The imprint seemed to fade or Bornstellar grew in strength, because the first-form came back to the fore. But even so, he assumed his armor and bade a quiet farewell to his family, then followed the human back to the ship. His expressions were small but interesting; it seemed that the Didact’s imprint spoke deeply to him.

_ Keeper  _ sealed shut behind them and lifted off right away. At once, Bornstellar turned to him and asked, “Where is the Didact truly?”

“...We do not know. Not exactly. Reports indicate the Master Builder abandoned him in Flood-controlled space, but whether or not he is actually _dead_ is a matter for debate. You may avail yourself of our data while we travel, if you wish, and the Librarian has provided an ancilla for you.”

John dropped the first-form off in one of the officer’s quarters; most of them were empty, as he had come with only a skeleton crew, leaving the bulk of his forces to continue eradicating as much of the Flood as they could. Ancient Sorrow - the archeon-class ancilla currently running the _Keeper_ \- knew to provide a new set of armor for Bornstellar, alongside the Librarian’s ancilla. He consulted the ship’s ancilla. [How much use do you think he will be?]

‘He lacks the Didact’s… I hesitate to use the word _arrogance_ ,’ said Sorrow, ‘but that is the only word I can come up with that encompasses all I am referring to. But perhaps that will be to his benefit.’

[Not if he can’t get the other officers to obey him. That arrogance kept him on top, kept people from questioning, though it didn't stop some.]

* * *

Maethrillian was still larger than anything John had ever seen. The Ark - both of this one and the one he remembered - was longer and wider for sure, but the Forerunner capital was still bigger at least in terms of pure volume. Ships glittering like stars raced around it, but space itself beyond seemed strangely black.

A shiver raced down John’s spine, a whisper of the Gultanr’s gifts.

_ Something is wrong. _

Even so, he had a task to complete. He contacted Bornstellar and his ancilla directly. "We are approaching the Capital," he said in the young Forerunner's ear, watching Maethrillian grow larger as they drew near, “We have been instructed to deliver you to-"

A slender, silver ribbon rose slowly over the planet as _Keeper_ moved closer. Then another appeared, and another. John didn't even need to give the order. Sorrow fired the bottom thrusters to change their angle of approach, and they all watched through his eyes in mounting horror. What he originally believed to be orbital arches resolved themselves into a line of perfect rings stretching away into space on the other side of the spheroid.

'No. No no no no no…'

' _Halos?!_ Halos _at the capital?!_ '

'Even the Master Builder forbade such a thing!'

John stood silent and still on the bridge of the _Keeper_ , staring in shock, awe, terror (and how would he ever be a true SPARTAN again if he kept _feeling_ things like that). He had not been this close to _one_ fully functional Halo since before he became a Gravemind, much less _eleven_. All of them were in downstar orbits – Mendicant Bias had the twelfth – _he is_ coming _, coming_ here _, full complement of rings in the vision-_

The Flood within shrieked and demanded retreat, but he mastered it as he always did. [Sorrow,] he said, [Keep the engines hot.]

‘Understood.’

"-tan? Spartan?"

"My apologies, Bornstellar," he said, keeping his voice level, "My attention was pulled elsewhere. We have been instructed to deliver you to a conciliar residence, where you may rest and take more substantial nourishment before the trial."

"What troubles you?"

The Didact’s perception. It deserved an answer. "You have read about the Halos being gathered for decommissioning?" When he sensed the Forerunner's affirmation, he stated flatly, "This is the parking star that the rings have been ordered to."

There was a sharp inhale on the other end of the line.

"You see why we are… _concerned_."

"Indeed." There were unmistakable traces of the Didact's imprint in his voice when he spoke. "Why are they here? The Ecumenical Council knows what they can do, they commissioned the damned things - another star would surely have been more suitable."

Déjà pulled up the records in an eyeblink. "It seems like they are intending to collect Mendicant Bias's rogue Halo, and that they hope to prevent the rest from following in his footsteps by keeping an exceedingly close eye on them. There are new powers on the rise, and they know essentially nothing of the Flood and its horrors - or perhaps they simply do not know to fear it."

'The Capital's fate is sealed.'

'Countless generations – lost!'

[All ancillae, start pulling and storing data with the _Fleet_ , all historical information you can retrieve - and do the Domain as well. We will open the way. But all of you, get here - get here _now_.]

_ Keeper of Secrets _ dropped Bornstellar off at his residence on the edge of one of the discs, then ascended once more and cloaked, settling into a narrow orbit around the spheroid. John settled into a hard-light chair on the bridge of the corvette, and focused on pushing through what felt like a heavy curtain between him and the Domain.

The Domain itself seemed to reach back, and almost overwhelmed him with a massive outpouring of data, mixed with its own thoughts and emotions. It seemed almost to be weeping. _You must remember! For all those who come after, remember all as it used to be! Joy and sorrow, success and failure, victory and defeat - you must remember! All was lost there -_ all _was lost! Remember - for both our worlds!_

* * *

The _Fleet_ arrived over the space of an hour, sometimes single ships, sometimes in groups, but they all stood off from the capital, still processing a simply _enormous_ amount of data, both from local storage and from the Domain.

Even so, when Mendicant Bias and his rogue Halo appeared in system, they immediately swung around and fired on it. But the rampant ancilla expected an immediate assault, not necessarily from them but from _someone_. His Sentinels were already swarming about over the ring, under its shields, and absorbed the attacks that the shields did not. Most of the damage done was superficial at best, and what little that wasn't was not enough to halt Halo's progress.

[Sorrow, get us close to the surface and raise Bornstellar! With the Didact gone, he’s all we’ve got, and we are _not_ leaving him here to die!]

‘Working.’

_ Keeper of Secrets _ streaked for the main council complex even as chaos exploded around them. Everyone was panicking, even the _Fleet_ \- they knew what was _really_ coming - but they kept working anyway, still firing on the ring while retrieving all they could, both in terms of information and personnel.

'Bornstellar is on the move,' Déjà piped up, 'It seems that he encountered a shard of Mendicant Bias inside the Capital, but the Didact's imprint opened up an escape route.' She brought up a map of the relevant area and highlighted the path he was taking. Sorrow was already bringing them around.

‘Spartan, there’s a portal opening directly to the Ark.’

[I thought we told them not to do that!]

‘Nothing we can do to stop it now - no physical Flood presence in the system.’

[Yet.]

The Portal flared open, tethers of hard light binding it in place, holding it stable. Forerunner ships seemed to be routing through it, because several fortress-class vessels emerged from it and started targeting _all_ the Halo rings.

Bornstellar emerged from the council complex, along with half a dozen councilors and Warrior-Servants, and raced for the _Keeper_ , which was swinging around and opening up to admit them. Once they were aboard, the ship sealed up and raced for the Portal.

The rest of the _Fleet_ was doing the same, albeit at a slower pace so they could collect ships fleeing Maethrillian. The Halos had split off, meanwhile; some of them were moving through the Portal to escape, but the others - under Mendicant Bias’s control - were forming up around the Capital, preparing to fire. The energy was just starting to build.

_ Keeper _ was through first out of the _Fleet_ , streaking into the Portal alongside the first of the Halo rings. Even so, John didn't relax until the last of their ships was away - just before the rings fired.

* * *

Of the Forerunners rescued by _Keeper of Secrets_ , only Bornstellar seemed to be keeping it together. The others - Splendid Dust of Ancient Suns, Glory of a Far Dawn, and others who declined to name themselves - all seemed to be in shock over the attack, and when they were awake, they wandered the ship without really seeing anything. The Warrior-Servants recovered their composure quickly at least, and accepted John’s command on Bornstellar’s instructions.

Even so, there was nothing for them to do until they arrived at the Ark - which took longer than it should have, even for such a distance. Slipspace was massively disrupted, both by the passage of the Halos and by the Flood itself, it seemed.

But _Keeper of Secrets_ arrived at the Ark intact, which is more than could be said for some. John looked at it for the first time - and froze in place.

_ No. No no no no no.... _

The Ark wasn't right.

It was too big, _much_ too big, and it had only six petals to the other Ark’s eight. The biomes weren't right either, or rather they were in the wrong places and too big, just like the Ark itself. Its position relative to the Milky Way was off as well, ever so slight, but enough for him to notice.

The others picked up on his panic, read his memories versus the reality. All the ancillae ran the numbers, but since she started first, Déjà also finished first. ‘There must be another Ark, with another complement of rings,’ she said, ‘If this is not the one, then that is the only probable explanation.’

‘ _Another_ Ark? We nearly beggared the ecumene building _this_ one!’

‘We should search for it-’

[No,] John said immediately, [We say _nothing_. I don't know what happens to this one, but if by chance it _is_ destroyed by the Flood, we can’t leave any data behind for it to find. Act as if all is normal over transmissions. I will speak with the Librarian personally.]


	10. Nine: Messenger from the Darkness

Bornstellar took command of Forerunner forces as the Didact - all that remained of him, at least - and his first order of business was to track down Mendicant Bias and his rogue Halo. They had suspicions about where it had gone, but it took time to discover the exact location, and longer still to actually get there, even with jumps assisted by the _Fleet_. Slipspace was still massively in flux, but it no longer seemed like it was purely the Flood and the Halo transits.

The end was drawing near. As soon as he thought it, John knew it was true. The Great Cataclysm was perilously close.

Shadowfall signaled for his attention. ‘Chief, we’re picking up some unusual heat and energy radiation in a rimworld, along the edge of old human space.’

[Show me.] He briefly reviewed the data. The energy was inconsistent with any natural processes and too “oddly-shaped” to be a Forerunner ship, or even a Precursor structure. [I think this is it. Good work. Alert Bornstellar ASAP.]

In a matter of minutes, they were racing for the star system; it wasn't far from the Ark, actually on the near side of the galaxy.

Sure enough, there it was. The Halo was on approach to an odd planet that seemed to have a wolf etched in craters on its face. Bornstellar’s ship streaked ahead of all the others, aiming for the ring, and the _Fleet_ followed close behind. Déjà ran an analysis even as they drew alongside the construct.

Bornstellar was already sending out orders. The Halo was dangerously low on power; if they couldn't get energy into the system, it was going to shear apart as it passed. It was already shearing apart-

All the ships docked with the installation and started connecting their power grids in, while the _Fleet_ internally kept watch for the logic plague. Nasty little virus it was, perverting ancillae and making them serve the Flood, a _philosophical_ form of infection-

** There is peace in subjugation… **

_ For fuck’s sake, do you ever stop? _

There was a Gravemind on the ring, but it was new, weak, unable to connect with the rest of the galaxy quite yet. That they suppressed with ease, erasing its influence.

They could not erase the influence of the Primordial. Its black-ice presence was heavy in their minds, reaching for them, seeking the revenge it had long brooded over in its prison.

But there was something else as well. Something slower, subtler, clearly obvious only _now_ at the end of things. A presence like a film between them and the Primordial, thin but unbreakable; it pushed hard, tried to take control, but couldn't pierce the film.

The Domain? Something like it?

It didn't matter. They had more pressing concerns.

But in the end, the planet passed through the ring without touching. Even so, the damage was immense. Huge sections were shed into space, and John watched as they tumbled end over end. Soon the Halo was small enough to fit through a narrow portal to the Ark - and it did.

* * *

John was called to bear witness. To what, Bornstellar - _the Didact_ , did not say, but all of the Infected watched through his eyes as he entered the facility. The Didact was already there, along with a human on life support of some sort. Clearly the Forerunner wished him to bear witness as well. They entered the facility and emerged in a wide arena.

The Primordial was on a dais below, surrounded by a cage of black rods.

It reached for them, but examined rather than sought to dominate. Even so, the Hive withdrew with a hiss, and listened as the Didact questioned the Primordial.

“Have you found what you sought?”

“No. Life demands and clings selfishly.”

“Why did you come here at all?”

“Not by choice.”

“Were you brought here, or did you command the Master Builder to bring you?”

No answer.

Unwise perhaps, but the Didact and the human drew nearer to the cage. John followed warily behind. “Are you again hoping to take vengeance upon Forerunners for defying your race and surviving? Is that why you bring this plague down upon us all?”

“No vengeance. No plague. Only unity.”

“Sickness, slavery, lingering _death_!” the Didact returned in wrath, “We will analyze everything here, and we will _learn_. The Flood _will_ be defeated.”

“Work, fight, live. All the sweeter. Mind after mind will shape and absorb. In the end, all will be quiet with wisdom.”

The Didact clenched his fists; rage or fear, John didn't know. “You told me you were the last Precursor. How can you be the last of _anything_? I see now that you are nothing more than a mash-up of old victims infected by the Flood - a Gravemind. Were _all_ the Precursors Graveminds? Or in the end are you only an imitation of a Precursor, a puppet, a reanimated corpse? Are all the Precursors gone, or is it that the Flood will make new Precursors?”

“Those who created you were defied and hunted,” said the Primordial, “Most were extinguished. A few fled beyond your reach. Creation continued.”

_ Path Kethona. _

“Defied! You were monsters set upon destroying all who would assume the Mantle.”

“It was long ago decided. Forerunners will never bear the Mantle.”

“Decided _how_?”

“Through long study. The decision is final. Humans will replace you. Humans will be tested next.” The Primordial’s pitiless eyes turned to John and the other human.

The Spartan knew what it spoke of. _The Halo Campaign._

But _how_ did it know? Or did it assume it was inevitable that the Flood would return in new forms in a new era?

“Is that to be our punishment?” the Forerunner asked.

“It is the way of those who seek out the truth of the Mantle. Humans will rise again in arrogance and defiance. The Flood will return when they are ripe—and bring them unity.”

“But most humans are immune-” The Didact stopped. Then he said, “Can the Flood choose to infect, or not to infect?”

To John’s eyes, the thing grinned, enigmatic and insane. “No immunity. _Judgment._ ”

“Then why turn Mendicant Bias against its creators, and encourage the Master Builder to torture humans? Why allow this cruelty? Are you the fount of all misery?” the Didact demanded.

“Misery is sweetness,” the Primordial answered cryptically, “Forerunners will fail as you have failed before. Humans will rise. Whether they will also fail has not been decided.”

“How can you control any of this? You’re stuck here—the last of your kind!”

“The last of _this_ kind.” Its grin widened. “We are the Flood. There is no difference. Until all space and time are rolled up and life is crushed in the folds... no end to war, grief, or pain. In a hundred and one thousand centuries... unity again, and wisdom. Until then—sweetness.”

The Didact growled, and called up the control panel for the Primordial’s cage. “Let your life race ahead! You were made to survive deep time, but now it will arrive all at once. No sweetness, no more lies! Let a billion years pass in endless silence and isolation!”

Before their very eyes, the Primordial _aged_. Cracks split its surface, limbs fell away, all of it turned to dust until nothing remained.

* * *

Installation 07 was cleansed of the Flood and deployed to the depths of the galaxy, forever wrapped in cloud – a memorial to those who lost their lives, who were infected and yet still stood in defiance of Mendicant Bias and the Primordial.

343 Guilty Spark was born of the human John saw in the arena; the Composer’s work. The Spartan was far from pleased, but time induced rampancy in _all_ AIs, even Forerunner ancillae. If such a thing had happened in the past, they had no records of it, but there was no changing it - not if they wanted to maintain the timeline.

John wasn't sure that he did. Not if the price was too heavy.

But this, at least, he would allow.

The _Fleet_ returned to the front lines, still fighting a losing battle, doing all the damage they could to protect the few Forerunners who survived.

But then they found a survivor they did not expect.

* * *

‘Spartan!’

John came out of an exhausted sleep with a jolt. His mind was clouded, but it rapidly cleared. [Report.]

‘It’s - you need to come and see.’

He barely took the time to pull on his armor before letting the _Storm_ ’s internal transit system pick him up and drop him off in one of the cargo bays.

The remains of a ship lay on the deck before him. It looked like it had been put through hell; the hull was buckled everywhere, and breached in more than a few places. Despite the destruction, there were a few survivors laid out, being tended by the Lifeworkers. One of them was Catalog, part of the Juradicals, who handled Forerunner legal proceedings. John didn't trust them - they'd been inadvertently bought before, unbeknownst to many of their parts.

Another was the Didact. The _original_ Didact, unconscious but uninfected.

“How is he?”

Ambience-of-Night was kneeling next to him. The little Lifeworker was new - they'd _just_ picked him up not even three days before - and not infected, though he had expressed the desire to stay with the _Fleet_ for as long as was feasible - which could be a very long time indeed. “He’s... there’s something wrong. His neural topography is _severely_ disturbed. I’ve never…” He shook his head and stepped back to let Moons-of-Evening-Star lean over him.

Her probes tapped over the Warrior-Servant’s bare face. “Ambience is right,” she said after a few moments, “But there’s something else. It’s almost - it’s almost like he’s been infected with the logic plague.”

“Set up a quarantine, and check the others as well. But why would a Gravemind do ‘catch and release’ with the _Didact_? If it took him, it would know _everything_.” He reached out mentally to get a feel for him - thank you, Tuavan, for the refinement to their natural yet still very weird Flood ability.

It was like a slimy black seed germinating, roots starting to spread through the Forerunner’s mind, itself thrown into disarray and providing fertile ground for the corruption. It moved so _fast_ that there was no time to physically move the Didact; he had to act _now_.

“Restrain him.”

The Lifeworkers moved away at once, and the Warrior-Servants came forward to pin the other Forerunner with all their strength, even though he was still unconscious.

It wouldn't last.

And it didn't.

The moment John reached into the Forerunner’s mind, he came awake, fighting hard, _writhing_ in the others’ grips, and spitting the foulest curses the Spartan had ever heard - and some he hadn't. Even the ODSTs had _nothing_ on the Didact. His mind similarly struggled, but the Spartan was still a Gravemind, with the full might of his Hive behind him.

The thing was wily and cruel; if it couldn't take the Forerunner, it would leave his mind shredded beyond repair. But it underestimated them; together they were able to shield the bulk of the Didact’s consciousness, the most important parts of his mind, from it, and an inch at a time, John extracted the dark seed of evil the Gravemind - no, the _Primordial_ had planted in him. As it finally came free, he heard it whisper, **Didact, do you have a moment? Just a moment. That’s all it will take.**

He had used _his_ mind to remove it, and now the seed was inside him - but again, unlike the Didact, who was alone in his own mind, John and the Infected together had the strength to crush it, rip it apart and banish the last of the Primordial’s influence. It tired them – the Flood’s will was strong, and they had their own Flood to contend with simultaneously – but they did it.

When he came back to himself, the Spartan was exhausted, shaking with weariness despite his armor doing its best to help him, and sweating like a pig. [How long?]

‘Three days.’

He let out a bark of laughter at that. Time had felt simultaneously stretched and compressed. “See to the Didact. Return his neural topography to normal - or whatever passes as normal for him. And tell the Librarian and the Bornstellar Didact we found him.”


	11. Ten: A Dying Empire’s Cry

At the order of both the Librarian and the Bornstellar Didact, the _Fleet_ raced for Far Nomdagro, where the Didact’s personal ship, the _Mantle’s Approach_ , met them. Yet the Forerunner did not transfer to it, instead electing to remain on the _Storm_ in the care of the _Fleet_ ’s Lifeworkers until Bornstellar and the Librarian joined them.

He asked for the Spartan.

The door to the Didact’s rooms hissed open, and John stepped through. The lights within were dim, but not prohibitively or sinisterly so. The Didact was laid out on a couch sized for even his massive frame, eyes closed, hands folded on his chest.

He looked like a corpse, laid in state, but he was alive. The Spartan could hear his breathing, and Déjà confirmed it.

John walked over and sat in a hard light chair the _Storm_ called up for him.

After a long minute of silence, the Forerunner took a shuddering breath and spoke. “I am _broken_ , Spartan,” he said. His voice was worn and weary; he actually sounded his age now. “You have saved me from being the Flood’s instrument, but the damage it has dealt… it is too great. I am no longer of any use, no more the Didact, only Shadow-of-a-Sundered-Star, and a pale shadow at that.”

What was there to say, to such a one in such a state?

“...perhaps that is true,” John said finally, “But Bornstellar still bears your skill and wisdom at the front of the Forerunner line, such as that line is now. He wears the mantle of the Didact… but the Librarian did not fall in love with that title, only the person behind it.”

The Forerunner lifted his hands to cover his face, an uncharacteristic display of distress. “My wife - she should not see me like this - she should not-”

“It would be a comfort to her,” the Spartan interrupted quietly, “to see you in her final days, whatever your state. It would please her to know that you still live.”

That made the Didact - no, that made _Shadow_ lower his hands and look at him with confusion. “Her final…? Surely she lived? Surely she, of _all_ our people, saw our triumph over the Flood, such as it may be? Whatever remains after the Array does its awful work?”

John shook his head. “She means to follow in the footsteps of her other self from my world. She means to be on Erde-Tyrene, on _Earth_ when the Array is fired. Exactly what will lead her there, I do not know, but she still means to go.”

Shadow sat up at that. “ _No_ ,” he said, an echo of the old Didact’s imperiousness resurfacing, “She _cannot_ \- she must _live_ , to see all our plans come to fruition-”

“I imagine that changing her mind will be even harder than changing yours.”

The Warrior-Servant rose to pace. John watched in silence.

Another long moment passed before Light from Distant Suns (or Sunlight, as she was more commonly known) spoke. “Sirs, the Librarian and the - and the Didact have arrived.”

* * *

At Shadow’s request, the Didact came to them first. He entered the chambers and paused a moment, examining the Warrior-Servant before him. He seemed to understand, too, but still greeted Shadow with honor and respect. “You have returned to us, my brother,” he said, and stepped forward to embrace the other Forerunner, “You have been greatly missed, and we are glad to have you home.”

Shadow seemed surprised at the rictus, but accepted and even returned it. When they parted, he said, “I do not deserve your regard. Were it not for the Spartan, I shudder to think of what state I would have been in - what harm I would have done. I shudder to think of what I _did_ do, in his world.”

The Didact shook his head, displayed the smallest of smiles. “But he _is_ here, and so are you, and for good or ill, that world is not this one. Will you stand with me, brother?”

Shadow hesitated. John could see that he longed to do it - one last battle, to go out in a blaze of glory - but at last he shook his head. “I do not have the strength, not anymore,” he said, voice heavy with grief, “The Flood has taken that from me as well.”

“Oh, my brother…” The Didact gave another tiny smile, this one of equal sorrow. “Then I will have the strength for both of us. Be at peace, _Ur-Didact_. Your battle is over.”

They embraced once more.

It was then that the Librarian arrived, and the Didact stepped back to let her greet Shadow. “Husband,” she said, warm and gentle.

“Wife,” he returned, and they too embraced. All of society had broken down; there was no judgement here for what many would have called an unseemly display of emotion. When they pulled back but still held one another in their arms, he continued, “Wife, the Spartan tells me you mean to be in the path of the Array when it is lit.”

“I do,” she said softly, cupping his face, “I know not what will lead me there, but Erde-Tyrene is not so terrible a place to meet an end.”

“I would come with you,” said the Promethean, “I long for battle, but have little will left to fight it. Let me use what I have to stand with you, in defense of you, one last time.”

The Librarian’s eyes actually grew glassy with unshed tears. “Few things indeed would bring me more joy, my love.”

But then alarms began to sound. “Slipspace ruptures detected,” said Sunlight, “Precursor star roads. The Flood is coming.”

* * *

Shadow handed the _Mantle’s Approach_ over to the Didact and went with the Librarian to _Audacity_. The _Fleet_ surrounded them all, projecting their strange resistance field, and led the way as they followed their Cole Protocol, jumping on synchronized yet randomized vectors to the Ark.

But on the way, they finally heard. All but one of the Halos had been hunted down by the Flood and utterly destroyed, flung into their systems’ stars to twist and warp and boil away.

[Then where are the others?!] John demanded, [There are seven rings, I know there are! The Greater Ark cannot manufacture ones so small, so where is the Lesser?! Where is Installation Zero-Zero?!]

‘Unknown,’ Stormwatch answered, ‘We will begin calculations based on your memories, but it is unknown if we will be able to triangulate its location in time. The Flood is following us - it’s making for the Ark.’

[...It tracked our passage. It cannot sense where we are because we resist its influence, but now with the galaxy consumed, it _can_ sense where we are _not_. Alert _Mantle’s Approach_ and _Audacity_.]

‘Already done.’

But then there was news in return. _“All remaining Forerunners have been brought here,”_ said Offensive Bias, _“The last systems have been overwhelmed. There will be no other ships.”_

There were likely still ships out there, fighting, but they were few and scattered, with no sure way to contact them. Soon to be overtaken, if not by the Flood then by the Array - if indeed there _were_ more Halos.

John was invited down to attend a gathering of the few remaining Forerunner commanders. Of them all, his fleet was the most intact - but also the smallest. Despite Forerunner society nearing its end, there was still infighting, political maneuvering - and more news. When fired, the Array destroyed not just biological lifeforms, but also Precursor architecture, disrupting neural physics as well as neural systems - which explained why the UNSC had never seen any artifacts, despite them being so prevalent during the age of the Forerunners.

And at last, the Lesser Ark. The other Array. John never thought that hearing of Halo’s existence would make him rest easy, but now it did. All was as he knew, and time was starting to wind towards its inevitable end.

And this with it: the star roads were coming. The _Fleet_ felt them first through the Gultanr, their minds tracing the lines of the Precursor architecture before they had even arrived in nearby Slipspace, and they alerted the Ark and its defenders.

John was already running for his ships. _Cryptic Whisper_ caught him up and bore him away to the _Perfect Storm._

The Librarian contacted him on the way up. She looked harried, Shadow alarmed behind her. “My specimens!” she cried, “The humans - all the peoples and genetic composites - they are down on the Ark!”

“There is a little time, the transit system is not yet compromised - not until the star roads arrive. Transfer all genetic composites and choose at random from each of the living populations, move them to the _Fleet_ ; we will take what we can,” he told her, “And send more to the Didact; he _must_ get to the other Ark. If the Master Builder is actually telling the truth for once, the Flood will not send the star roads into the path of Omega Halo - it would destroy them. That is our escape route.”

Relief washed over both Forerunners, even though they knew it would not be enough. The connection cut even as they hurried to work. There was no time to move anything major, but the Ark was coming alive, preparing to defend itself.

And in the distance, the star roads emerged.

By the time they drew near, the _Fleet_ was full of alien species - and now had guardianship of Guilty Spark’s Gargantua-class transport. The very instant he had confirmation, John ordered them up, following the line of Omega Halo as the energy built at its heart.

They all got away just in time.


	12. Eleven: Galaxy’s Requiem

The _Fleet_ arrived at the Lesser Ark and started a flurry of activity, transporting all of the alien species down to the station. There was no telling if the Flood would follow - and there was no point in keeping them onboard when there was nowhere left to go.

The ships wove through the Halo Array, suspended over the Lesser Ark as one day Zero-Four-B would be again. The installation was almost completely automated - no one had seemed to think it would be necessary, would revert to being the primary Ark - but there were still a few of the Librarian’s Lifeworkers here to take custody of the remainder.

The _Mantle’s Approach_ arrived not long after, three other small ships following in its wake.

There was no sign of _Audacity_.

Winterspell connected with the Didact at once. He already seemed to anticipate John’s question. “The humans on Omega Halo were lost,” he said, “They have gone to Erde-Tyrene to retrieve those that were left. I am told there is one last keyship; they will send us all they can find. But they have left you…”

The data came quickly. The Librarian had left them her imprint, her memories, the wisdom of thousands of years as an ancilla of sorts. At once she was shunted to safety in storage alongside their other ancillae, but there was no corresponding imprint from Shadow.

Yet even as it happened, there was a transmission - the Librarian and Shadow-of-a-Sundered-Star, claiming a cure with one last component from Erde-Tyrene. From Earth, far from the Lesser Ark.

“‘See how they bait their trap?’” John said, quoting the Arbiter’s words from so long ago - and so long from now, “They are buying us time. We can't let it go to waste.”

The Didact nodded in agreement and sent the order to deploy the rings - and to send the Gargantua-class transport to the Librarian. Its pieces would become the Portal Generator under Africa, buried for a hundred thousand years.

Activity continued in the Fleet, but it was automatic, unconscious, because all of them watching through only a few sets of eyes as the Portal opened. One by one, the rings - smaller, more efficient, their energy radial rather than directed - moved through to their stations.

After the last one passed out of sight, the keyship arrived, carrying the last humans from Earth. They hoped it would be enough.

If John’s memories held, it would be.

* * *

At the Didact’s request, John descended from the _Storm_ to join him in the control room. The hall was empty this time, unlike the last time he walked it - and the next time. There was no telling what the future would bring; he and the _Fleet_ had not yet decided what to do about the Covenant.

There hadn't really been any _time_ to decide.

The Didact stood at the very back of the hall, looking out over the Foundry through the rose window Miranda’s Pelican smashed through. When the Spartan stepped off the light bridge and onto the platform, he turned to face the human and took note of how John was squinting into the light of the Foundry, his face pained.

He raised his eyebrows in question, and the Spartan grimaced. “Headache. It started after we left the Greater Ark. Déjà’s trying everything she’s got, but it’s just…” He shrugged, then winced when the gesture aggravated his headache.

Then the Array reported that it was detecting pre-echoes of the Firing - that even though the doomsday button had not yet been pressed, the rings had _already been lit_ \- pre-echoes that the _Fleet_ ’s personnel were detecting as well, which their flesh was conveying to them the only way it could.

A fucking _killer_ migraine.

For a moment, the Didact was overwhelmed by grief. He buried his face in his hands and turned away. But then he took a deep breath and turned back, ascending the steps to the control panel.

The universe said it was already done. What else was there to do?

For the first time in its history, the _Fleet_ was completely silent, all eyes watching through John’s. The Didact stopped in front of the display, then sighed and pressed the button.

The holographic rings lit up, energy beginning to build. The pain in their minds exploded for an instant, then dropped off sharply, and the vision replaced it.

_The Librarian and the Ur-Didact stood sans armor at the foot of Kilimanjaro, overlooking the finished Portal Generator. It had been completed, its systems had come online just in time to tell them of the lighting of the Array._

_The Librarian let out a long breath and turned to the Ur-Didact, who gathered her in his arms. She looped her own arms around his neck, and they pressed their foreheads together, breathing each other’s air._

_The world went white._


	13. Twelve: The Cleansing of Darkness

The Infected murmured amongst themselves as the ship descended from the sky. John watched in silence as swarms of Sentinels ascended to meet it, steering it to the dock. His attention was mostly on that, but he spared a moment to glance at all the others present - mostly Forerunners, but a few humans, too, including one that the Didact seemed to know. A Florian - one of the “hobbits” of Indonesia; their species had long been extinct by the time humanity reached the stars again.

He decided not to mention that, instead refocusing on the ship as it landed. It did so with a _boom_ , and a door at the bow opened to release Mendicant Bias’s AI core. The Sentinels pulled it from the ship towards the waiting tomb.

As it was lowered into place, the Didact said, “Ancilla 05-032 of the designation Mendicant Bias, you have colluded with the greatest enemy of the Mantle.”

“Those who pass judgement should first judge themselves,” the Contender returned. Its voice was still smooth and androgynous, not distorted by the Gravemind’s long influence; the Spartan wasn't sure why he’d expected it to be different.

“A sin to fight a sin,” the Didact answered, “a lesser evil to fight a greater one. That is the choice I was forced to make. You had no such excuse; you brought matters to this point."

"Why was I spared, then?"

"You are brought here to be sentenced. You have not been immediately destroyed because you may yet be needed. Your intimate knowledge of the Flood makes you invaluable, should it return, but we can never trust you, never again allow you any latitude. You will be entombed here, your processes locked, frozen into a single thought for all eternity: absolution. Should you be needed, you will be reawakened. Should there be no need, you will be buried here until the end of Living Time."

"Then I will serve as a monument to your sins. That is what you wish for."

"I wish only for the Mantle to be upheld."

John raised a faintly disdainful eyebrow at that. Really? Still this talk of the Mantle? ‘Guardianship for all living things lies with those whose evolution is the most complete’ - more like it lies with those whose destructive power was the greatest. It had been seized from the Precursors, and once they had it, the Forerunners held on with both hands and utterly crushed anyone who dared to challenge them.

Until the Flood came to take it back.

"I am penitent,” said the Contender, “I know that what I have done cannot be forgiven. I will accept my stasis with grace and await a time when I might redeem myself."

"Aya, so shall it be," said the Didact, and he signaled for the burial.

“One thought for all eternity…” Mendicant Bias sounded almost wistful. “Atonement.”

The tomb sealed, turned black, and was covered by sand.

* * *

Humanity was the first species to be reseeded on their home planet. John watched from orbit over Erde-Tyrene - over _Earth_ \- as the various subspecies were released onto the surface, as the Didact said farewell to the humans he had known while he was still no one but Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting. Despite the fact that the Flood had been eradicated, the Didact still insisted that the _Fleet_ escort the Lifeworker ships as they deposited their charges on their respective planets.

John didn't see the point - there was no longer a threat, so _why_? - but he agreed anyway. No sense making enemies here at the end of things.

The last of the Lifeworker ships lifted off from the surface, aiming for the Portal. The Generator itself was already completely covered, and once they went through, the Portal would close, and remain so for a hundred thousand years.

They still hadn't made a decision on the Covenant. He was tempted to wait, to see what _really_ caused the Prophets’ genocidal campaign and counter it - or better yet, assassinate Truth, Mercy, and Regret before they could gain power and declare war. He had no wish to become like _them_ , to eradicate an entire species just for existing, and much of the _Fleet_ was inclined to agree.

(He had no wish to become like the Precursors, like the Forerunners, like the Flood.)

The _Fleet_ escorted the Lifeworker ships into the Portal, before and behind, and that was the last time he saw Earth for a _long_ time.

* * *

After that, the reseeding switched from sentimentality to practicality. Humans first had been deliberate; the Forerunners had felt that it was only right that the Reclaimers be returned home first. John didn't care one way or another, but neither did he gainsay them.

But from there, it was practicality all the way; the furthest species, then the next furthest, on down to the San’Shyuum, whose home world was, interestingly enough, one of the closest to the Ark.

The _Fleet_ personally dropped off their member species, starting with the Gultanr. John and Ferial went down to the surface with the new Primas Uperbia, an ash-gray Gultanr by the name of Ievaeth. “I imagine we will be seeing you again at some point,” she said, tucking her hands into the sleeves of her robes as they walked, “Possibly even sometime very soon.”

“Oh?”

“Indeed. Our world is the home of the _halgengei_.”

“Oh my _God_ those fucking worms; they’re like _crack_ , I swear.”

Both Ferial and Ievaeth laughed at that. “Indeed,” said the Primas Uperbia, “Once we are reestablished, we will be glad to trade with you for them, although it will be some time before we can do so on equal footing.”

“I wish we could give all of you back what you’d lost.”

Three hundred and fifty years was a long time. Much of the planet had been reclaimed by nature, so even the Gultanr were essentially starting over at the beginning like all the others. By the end of their culture, they were second only to the San’Shyuum in terms of advancement - all of them behind the Forerunners, of course. But there had been others, as well; the Tuavan had had powered flight, and the Saavaasi had been preparing for their first spaceflight when the Librarian came.

Ievaeth waved him off. “We appreciate the sentiment, and while I’m sure there would be many eager to demand recompense for the ecumene’s… _everything_ , I am not one of them. This is as good a chance as any to begin anew, but we can't do that if we are clinging to what we’ve lost and insisting on reparations.”

“Very wise,” Ferial agreed, inclining her head to her distant successor, “You will lead our people well. May the gods grant you clear sight, sister.”

The two dragons bowed to each other, and then Ievaeth bowed to John, who returned the gesture. Then she set off through the grass to join her people, who were setting up camp on the shores of the valley’s clear lake. These were the children of those eggs and nestlings and younglings given into the Librarian’s care, but even though they had never known anything but shelter in the Forerunners’ shadow, they were still well prepared to resume life on their home world.

The Spartan hoped they made it.

* * *

The Lituni were after the Gultanr, and their planet’s biomes seemed nearly as varied as Earth’s. Much to John’s surprise, the Lituni - despite being furry cat-people - were native to the rainforests near the mid-latitudes, and they ran around in delight in an afternoon rainstorm that rolled overhead as they were released from the dropships’ holds.

“So more like tigers than any other cats.”

“Indeed.” Azizura tilted her head back and retracted part of her helm armor to let the rain pour over her. When John did the same, he noted that the planet’s petrichor had a distinctly different smell from any other planet he’d been on. Was it natural or something from the Lifeworker solutes for the Halo Array?

Azizura and her memories seemed to indicate it was natural. Still, the Spartan thought it was weird that petrichor smelled like chocolate on this world.

The Mother Purr - the matriarch of the local clan, so ancient that she couldn't even walk on her own - waved them over, and shakily embraced her sister one last time. “Be well, my dear,” she rasped, “Don't let this human get you all in _too_ much trouble. The Gultanr are right to say that all of you have a part still to play in the Strings of Time.”

* * *

The Saavaasi were next.

“Is _everything_ on this planet trying to kill you?!?”

“Pretty much.” Atheos rolled almost like an alligator and slammed his long tail hard enough against the _thing_ ’s head that it fell to the ground, stunned, for just long enough that John was able to cut off its head with his plasma swords. “Hence the reason we insisted on our people being armed when they were returned.”

The Lifeworkers at least had known how dangerous the planet was and assented in a heartbeat, then worked to persuade the others. The Saavaasi had been granted the use of titanium - ordinary titanium, not whatever the Forerunners used for their constructs - to make all manner of blades in anticipation of their return to their home planet.

The first dropships had been attacked by a herd of what looked like rhinoceroses with shark teeth.

“I hope you aren’t offended when I say I don't think we’ll be coming back here until your people leave it.”

“Not in the slightest. This planet is hard on all its inhabitants.”

“Then why the _fuck_ did your people want to come _back_?! The Lifeworkers offered them other planets - _any other planet_.”

“Earth is humanity’s home, but Reach is yours. If you had the chance, would you go to Earth - or would you go _home_?”

That was fair. “Still, Reach isn’t fucking _space Australia_.”

“I’m sure it has its moments.”

“...maybe.”

* * *

The Tuavan were after the Saavaasi, and John had never in his _life_ seen such _enormous_ trees. Even Hyperion on Earth wasn't _nearly_ so tall, or so it seemed. The Tuavan immediately hooked their claws in the bark of their trees and scurried up the trunks to the branches high above, whereupon many of them leaped and spread their wings to glide to the next branch and the next tree. Most vanished swiftly into the forest, glad to be home; the Forerunners had tried their best, but even with all their skill, they hadn’t been able to duplicate the Tuavan’s environment close enough to make them truly happy.

Still, some stayed behind to bid farewell to their Infected fellows - Qe’rid and Qi’krith and all the others. These were the flock leaders, and they all carefully rubbed noses with the Infected Tuavan, and even John himself, as a gesture of farewell.

The Spartan had to kneel to do it with the last of them; she was full grown but tiny, barely half his height. Despite her size - and also her youth, as the youngest flock leader - her eyes were old with wisdom; all Tuavan had their telepathy, but only the Xixi clan truly _shared minds_ akin to the Hive. When the flock leader no longer had the strength to leave the nest, they chose a child to tend to them and hunt for their food, and in exchange, they shared their wisdom mind-to-mind. This young one carried the memories of… who knew how many of her people in a line unbroken for _generations_.

“Be well, Warrior,” she said, her voice young and yet so very old, “The world is not yet done with you.”

* * *

The Adonte were last. The “Grays” of human legend, they were native to an almost resort-like world - or what humanity would consider resort-like. Very calm, very placid, very rich, little to no inclement weather or disasters - well-suited to produce such a calm people, devoted to intellectual pursuits. They bade farewell to the Infected, same as all the others, but they did not waste time on sentimentality, instead heading off in search of the necessities; food, water, shelter.

It made John grin, just a little. He liked that kind of practicality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ievaeth - Ee-eh-vah-eth
> 
> Azizura - Ah-zee-zoo-rah
> 
> Saavaasi - Sah-vahss-ee
> 
> Atheos - Ath-ey-ohss
> 
> Tuavan - Too-ah-vahn
> 
> Qe’rid - Keh-reed
> 
> Qi’krith - Kee-krihth
> 
> Xixi - Ksee-ksee


	14. Thirteen: One to Succeed a God

Many of the Forerunners were gone by the time the _Fleet_ returned to the Ark. The _Mantle’s Approach_ was still docked with the station, so they weren't _gone_ gone; the Didact had expressed the intention to hunt down the enemy Gravemind that had sent John to their world, if indeed it existed here as well. The Forerunners had decided that before any penance they might serve, they still had a duty to safeguard future generations from the Flood. They would do another sweep through the Large Magellanic Cloud, before also sweeping the Small Magellanic Cloud and the rest of the Local Group - or at least the parts of it that could be reasonably reached by the Flood.

And then… they would fade.

John disembarked from the _Cryptic Whisper_ and stepped out onto the Ark. He had never really had a chance to appreciate the construct before; both times he’d been more focused on doing his duty than sightseeing. Now he finally had the chance, at least for a while.

_ Cryptic Whisper _ had let him and several others out onto grassy hills on a wide plain. In one direction, there were mountains in the distance that pierced the clouds above, thick forests giving way to deep snow on their flanks; in another was the tall metal wall that ringed the Foundry. In a third direction, the plain turned to golden dunes that ran down to a wide and salty sea.

It wasn't a bad place to while away a hundred thousand years of waiting, but John knew they couldn't stay. They would have to go elsewhere, make their own home. See what was left of the ecumene while they could, make whatever repairs they thought prudent…

Hm. Humanity had only ever come to the _Lesser_ Ark. Could they remake the _Greater_ , and claim it as their own? It would give them an extragalactic base of sorts, so they could monitor the Array and every other Forerunner installation they had access to (which was more than a few). And now there was really no one to refuse them the use of what supplies and facilities remained to the ecumene; at this point, they _were_ the ecumene.

The rest of the _Fleet_ had caught that line of thinking. The Miners and the Builders were already making plans for improvements and debating if they should move its location closer or further away or just change its position relative to the Milky Way, while the Lifeworkers were discussing what species they would keep there and in what form.

John rolled his eyes but let them talk. Rebuilding the Greater Ark would give them all something to do, at least for a time.

_ Audacity _ and several other Forerunner ships emerged from Slipspace over the Ark - several ships he didn't recognize. He queried Déjà, and she confirmed that they were piloted only by the surviving Forerunners from the Ark - and that some people were missing.

They were heading for their “camp,” where they had all been living for the past hundred years during the Reseeding. John frowned and returned to the _Whisper_ , and Winterspell carried him over to them.

They were all silent, grief-stricken.

They also had a new Monitor with them. The Didact introduced him as 000 Tragic Solitude, the Monitor of Installation Zero-Zero. John raised an eyebrow - he didn't remember ever encountering or hearing from said Monitor while on Zero-Zero before - but he still greeted the ancilla with courtesy.

Then the Didact told him what had happened. “Before the Firing - mere _moments_ before the Firing - I received a message from the Librarian and the Ur-Didact. At first, I thought it false, a trick, and with all that happened, it slipped from my mind until recently.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “But when I opened it, it _was_ real. They told us that the Firing of the Array didn't just target the neural physics of the star roads - it also destroyed the Domain.”

That made John go tense, inhaling sharply. The Domain was _gone_?! But at the same time, there at last was an explanation for its overpowering sorrow the last time he had tapped in, the overwhelming amount of data it had poured into him, demanding that he remember.

The _Fleet_ had. They still carried all of the data inside themselves.

(As a very brief aside, John told the teams preparing to reconstruct the Greater Ark that they would have to include server banks to store the Domain’s data. They agreed without even batting an eye.)

“The Librarian said that we _needed_ to find a way to restore the Domain, even if most of its data was lost,” the Didact went on, unaware of the _Fleet_ ’s secret, “for the sake of the future. Splendid Dust knew many secrets of the ecumene and directed us to the Organon, which generates the Domain field.

“But there was a Precursor ancilla, a knowledge engine - Abbadon. It was… _quite upset_ , about the Firing. It killed Keeper-of-Stone-Songs and Sorrow-for-Lost-Voices, and Growth-Through-Trial-of-Change died inserting the deadbolt key to reset the Organon. We do not know what became of her, save that she vanished in a flash of light.”

“We presume that the Organon is using her patterns as a base to restore the Domain,” Chant-to-Green said softly, “but how long that will take or if she will return and in what form… we don't know. There’s still so much we _don't know_ , even here at the end of things.” She looked almost wistful.

The Didact gently took her hand. They had been close for a while after the Great Cataclysm, then drifted apart. It seemed that they had been reconciled. “Splendid Dust wished to atone for our crimes and chose to be composed to become the Monitor of the Ark. He will safeguard the installation until the Reclaimers come.”

John raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

* * *

It took nearly three years of preparation for the last Forerunners to finally be ready to depart. They had one final duty and needed the supplies to do it, so as the more numerous of the lot, the _Fleet_ handled most of the acquisitions on their behalf, while also taking the opportunity to survey what was left of the galaxy.

Most Forerunner installations were still intact, but all the Precursor ones were gone. The tether on Reach had turned into a volcano, and _that_ John remembered. The UNSC Geological Survey Group had found Mount Erebus II to be _extremely_ odd, and now at last there was an explanation. Sort of.

The major cleaving of the Mother Crystal - which the Forerunners chipped flakes from to power their Slipspace drives - was still where they had left it when they were done equipping their own ships, so they let it be and departed.

They returned to the Ark, and the Didact called John to him. The few remaining command-level Forerunners - barely a hundred - were also gathered with him in the Ark’s Cartographer.

The Didact formally welcomed him in old Digon, a greeting John returned. Then the Forerunner signaled for him to kneel, which he did, and said, “We of the Second Ecumenical Council are leaving this galaxy behind, but we do not wish to leave it unmoored, unguided. You already carry the thousand-year wisdom of the Librarian, and we who remain have nothing more to offer that she cannot give you. We do therefore bestow all our authority upon you, military and civilian, to act in the interests of the people and to lead them as best you can.

“We also grant your _Fleet_ a new name. For so long, you have been the _Fleet of Shadows_ , working in darkness for the protection of the light… but now there is nothing left, save you. We have no doubt that you will endure until even the end of the Living Time. Therefore, you will now be the _Last Fleet_.

“Rise, Supreme Commander of the _Last Fleet_ , Protector of the Ecumene, and take up your mantle.”

John stood, and the Didact extended a hand. The Spartan gripped his arm in return, and light rippled from the Didact’s armor to his own; a transfer of command and control, along with all the Forerunners’ access codes to everything they had had ever built. He blinked, Déjà already sorting the information for him.

When the Didact released him and stepped back, the human bowed at the waist, at last greeting the Forerunner as an equal. “I am honored beyond words,” John said formally, “and all of us will do our best to safeguard the galaxy and let her people grow free of fear.”

The Second Council all bowed in return and bid a formal farewell.

The more personal farewells were saved for later, when they were about to depart. Then the Didact pulled him into an embrace, much to John’s surprise. The Forerunners had adopted some more human mannerisms, like smiling, but he still hadn't expected it. Even so, after a moment, the Spartan returned the hug.

At last the Didact stepped back and said, “Farewell, my brother in arms. I wish you better luck and greater success than anything we had.”

“Thank you,” John replied, “Good hunting.”

And then they were gone.


	15. Interlude: Voyage of Reminiscence

The Spartans couldn't deny that they were intrigued by the absolute _insanity_ that their brother-from-another-mother-in-another-universe had endured, even just up to what they had seen so far. And there was still a _hundred thousand years_ of history to go.

Doctor Halsey was even more intrigued, especially with the mechanics of what Forerunner technology they had seen, as well as the genetic imprint they all had received. They knew it was possible; humankind had even done it themselves in the past, though never on such a scale. But even so, it was one thing to _know_ it was possible; it was another thing _entirely_ to experience it for yourself, to live out the memories of a one-hundred-thousand-year-old Spartan-Gravemind and his band of merry men.

Even though he was doing exactly that, Lord Hood still wanted a full report of everything they learned through the imprint-dreams, just to have a record. As a result, all of the Spartans were temporarily on “light duty” (cleaning up the surviving Covenant on Earth, rather than striking out into the stars to handle problems in deeper space), writing up their reports alongside Sergeants Johnson, the two Keyes’, Doctor Halsey, and CPO Mendez.

They had all divvied up the work amongst themselves to make it easier: Halsey was handling any and all Forerunner tech specs and other “sciencey shit”, while Keyes, Keyes, and Mendez reviewed military action and strategy (of which there was a _lot_ ; essentially three hundred years straight of military engagements against the Flood). John had actually used the “Keyes Loop” a few times in unpredictable combinations against the Flood, and to great effect, causing the _Fleet_ and a number of Forerunners to nearly declare Captain (now Rear Admiral) Keyes a saint.

(Didn't stop almost everyone dying, though.)

The Spartans themselves were handling everything else, just pure history and interactions and people and politics (which they hated as much as John did). They did it in sections, each team working on a particular segment of time, and Johnson reviewed it all as the closest someone could get to being a Spartan while still being an outsider. He gave them input on thought processes needed to be clarified for non-Spartans and helped the Spartans themselves understand other things non-Spartans did.

“This is probably the most ‘relaxing’ assignment we’ve ever had,” Kurt said, standing up to stretch. There were murmurs of assent from the others with him. They were rotating who was fighting and who was writing, and those fighting reviewed the work of those writing before they handed it over to Johnson.

“No, _Emerald Cove_ was the most relaxing.”

“That wasn't an _assignment_ , Daze. We ditched our training for a week of what was basically vacation.”

Daisy snorted. “Maybe. But now Mendez knows exactly what we were doing during that time. You think he’ll try to get us back for it?”

“It’s been thirty-five years, but I wouldn't put it past him.”

“Still, it’s been _thirty-five years_ ,” Rene interjected.

“ _Still_ wouldn't put it past him,” Kurt returned, “But also… I feel bad for John. In his world, there were, what, _fifteen_ of us left? _If that?_ And here… we’re all here. We all made it. I kind of wonder if he feels like it’s _his_ fault his Spartans died. Like, Cortana picked him for his luck. Did he somehow _take ours_ , and it got them all killed? Did probability skew _against us_ in favor of _him_?”

“I hope not,” said Nick, “He’s got enough to worry about without worrying about that too.”

Johnson knocked, then entered the conference room they had commandeered to do their work. “I brought food. How’s it goin’, team?”

“Faster now that Doctor Halsey finished and installed that translator,” Aolani answered from where she was hunched over her PAD, “and the modified keyboard. It might not actually be our native tongue, but it’s a lot easier to do this in Digon than in Standard.” Even as she spoke, her fingers flew over the Forerunner-alphabet keyboard, the words flowing easily in the ancient tongue. Once she completed a sentence, the translator ran, and changed it to UEG Standard. It was good enough that only rarely did any of them have to go back and modify the translation.

The Sergeant raised an eyebrow at her. “Gonna do all your reports in Forerunner gibberish now, huh?”

“Maybe.”

Nick accepted his MRE stack and chewed morosely on what might have been a Salisbury steak. “John’s spoiled us with his memories, too. I miss real food. And I wanna try those worms for myself.”

“ _Halgengei_ ,” said Johnson with perfect inflection and accent, “and I wouldn't mind eatin’ some myself. ‘Course the Corps taught me to eat anythin’ as long as it’s stopped moving.”

“Same with our training.”

* * *

“This man.”

“We’re aware, Doctor.”

“ _This man._ ”

“ _We’re aware,_ Catherine.”

“ _I can’t type fast enough!_ ” the scientist nearly shouted, practically hammering at her keyboard, characters whizzing across the screen, “There’s just so _much!_ This will advance the UNSC’s understanding of science and the universe by thousands of years once we manage to make sense of it all, but _I can’t get it down fast enough!_ ”

Halsey was effectively pulling double duty, because she had to translate both the words and the concepts into something that made sense to humans. She was effectively writing thousands of years’ worth of scientific advancements in the space of a few days.

The others had comparatively lighter work; tactics, strategy, force numbers, troop deployments - it all was pretty much the same no matter what culture it was. It was the naming that was giving them the most trouble; the Forerunners didn't really _name_ their maneuvers, like the “Keyes Loop”, so they were having to give them designations beyond Attack Form Delta, Defense Form Beta, et cetera, because all of those meant something _completely_ different to UNSC personnel. And they couldn't just name it after the person who invented the maneuver or the tactic, because there were several gifted Warrior-Servant commanders like the Didact who had hundreds, even thousands of those maneuvers to their names.

They were also having to describe the battles that John and the _Fleet_ fought in or heard about or witnessed.

There were a _lot_. Even just what came from the Domain was still an enormous amount of information about the Human-Forerunner War and the associated battles with the Flood.

Rear Admiral Keyes pushed himself back from the table, then moved over to spin Halsey around and clasp her hands. “Catherine, take a moment to breathe. Of us all, you're the only one who really, truly understands the science and physics of it all and knows how to translate it to something we can explain, something we can _use_. If you give yourself an aneurysm or put yourself in the hospital, we’ll all be that much further behind. _Breathe_ , Catherine.”

Halsey forced herself to slow down and take a deep breath, then entwined her fingers with Jacob’s. “I know that. I _know_. It’s just… I feel like if I don’t get everything down _now_ , it’s going to slip through my fingers and be lost forever.”

“You _know_ that’s not true. I hardly think the _Fleet_ ’s abandoned us, not now. They just have work to do, and they’re probably waiting for the imprint to play itself out before they come back.”

Catherine sighed. “You’re probably right. I would rather just get it all down right the first time, and start our own work as quickly as possible.”

“I know, Catherine.”


	16. Fourteen: The Rise and Fall of the Ark

The Librarian had left them the _Audacity_ , with the intention that someday they would pass the ship on to humanity “when they were ready”. Her imprint left it up to them to decide when that would be, but in the meantime, the ship was available for their use. While everyone else was hunting down materials for the reconstruction of the Greater Ark, John and a few Builders and Warrior-Servants took _Audacity_ to its last known location to see what was left of the facility.

It was _so_ much worse than they imagined.

The Spartan heard moans of grief in the back of his mind, even as he himself nearly choked on his own tongue, fists tight on the hard light displays.

The Greater Ark was a _ruin_.

What had once been a magnificent installation, a much more massive six-petal version of the Lesser Ark, was now just twisted wreckage and debris. The Flood-controlled star roads had done their destructive work so well that he couldn't tell what it had originally looked like, or even what was the Ark and what was Omega Halo.

And the _bodies_.

Silver-Moon-of-Fortitude crouched in a corner of the bridge, huddled up and weeping; even her ancilla was unable to soothe her. She had lost two blood-siblings and her last imprint mentor in the destruction, but it was one thing to know they were dead. It was another thing entirely to see the wreckage the Flood had made of their lives’ work - and their actual lives.

_ Audacity _ steered carefully around the edges of the debris field, shields shimmering as micro particles hit them. “Nothing at all active,” said Relentless Pursuit - formerly Offensive Bias. Since he would not be installed as the Monitor of the Lesser Ark, he had elected to join the _Fleet_ and had taken on a new name in reflection of his new life.

“ _Nothing_?” John repeated, “Not even just a sensor array?”

“Nothing,” Relentless repeated, “or nothing that _Audacity_ can detect.”

There were no star roads either. Whether for good or ill, most of them had likely been destroyed with the Firing.

John pressed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets and cursed as fiercely and as foully as he knew how. He’d hoped that there would have been _something_ to work with, to build off of, but no. Nothing.

_ just dust and echoes _

“Scan for anything we can salvage as raw materials - and analyze the local field lines, if there are any. If the Omega Halo firing did any significant damage, we’ll need to move. We probably should anyway; no sense giving the Flood a free pass if by chance the Gravemind remembers where the Greater Ark was.”

* * *

_ Strangely enough, _ with the ecumene gone and no other faster-than-light travel anywhere else in the galaxy, the _Fleet_ ’s Slipspace budget was essentially unlimited.

Nice.

Even so, without the might of the ecumene, it took a long time for them all to choose a suitable replacement location for the new Greater Ark (briefly designated Installation Eat My Ass by an extremely sleep-deprived Silver-Moon when asked about the numbering sequence). It took longer still for them to revamp and modify the design of the old Greater Ark, both to incorporate new advancements in technology and to shrink the size of the Foundry so that it could produce newer Halos of its own, if necessary.

(They hoped it wouldn't be.)

* * *

John ducked as a Retriever Sentinel swooped overhead, carrying a segment of Forerunner metal the size of a UNSC frigate. It had only taken a thousand years to get everything in position, but now they were laying in the framework of the Greater Ark, thousands of Retrievers built specifically to construct and maintain the new Ark. Work was progressing quickly; the Foundry was already complete, with the rest of the skeleton fanning out from its central hub.

This Ark was _massive_ , even bigger than the last; if it had been built while the ecumene was whole, it really would have beggared the entire empire from one end to the other - save the Builders who made it.

John kept walking along the frame of one of the petals. It was thin and narrow, but only in comparison to the rest of the superstructure; the band was really miles wide. He reached the very tip of it, then turned back to look at the rest of it.

The bare framework looked almost like a knot of star roads, like a spider web spread out around something like a Halo ring with a planetoid in the center of it. [We’ll need to capture another soon. This one’s starting to look thin.]

‘Already on it, Commander. Also, is it okay if we swing by Maethrillian? I don't like the thought of the Organon just _sitting there_ in the open where anyone could find it.’

[I’d hardly call _Maethrillian_ “the open”, but go ahead and scout out the situation. And I want to know if moving the Organon here would affect the Domain within the Milky Way. If it does, we’ll just have to post a permanent guard rotation or seal it up where it can’t be found easily.]

‘We’ll run simulations as best we can.’

John moved out of the way as another Retriever swooped by, fitting in the last segment to connect the bands of this petal and fusing it in place. Then he looked up through the superstructure overhead.

The Milky Way swirled beyond, glowing bright and warm in the void. Earth was somewhere in that tangle of light, humans and Gultanr and all the other species living, growing, learning again.

[Have all Halos but Zero-Four and Zero-Five sterilize themselves of the Flood. I don't want so much as a single cell left.]

‘Understood.’

‘Is that wise?’ the Librarian’s imprint whispered in his ear. She was hitching a ride in his armor for the time being. ‘The installations could continue research…’

[We both know there’s no cure, and we can search for resistant genetics ourselves better than they ever could. I don't want to risk someone stumbling across the ring and saying, “Hm. I wonder what this is?” and causing another Forerunner-Flood War.]

‘Fair enough.’

* * *

A moan of grief woke him, and he shoved himself upright, blinking. It sounded just like when they had arrived to see the ruins of the Greater Ark, and he turned his attention to the waves of distress propagating through the Hive. [Talk to me.]

‘Commander… Maethrillian…’

He looked through their eyes.

Maethrillian was devastated as well. Much of the planet had been shattered by such a close-range firing of so many of the older Halos, their radiation tuned by Mendicant Bias to do heavy damage to the capital itself as well as its occupants. The wreckage was spread over thousands of kilometers, orbiting the star with what was left of the planet.

John fell back to the bed with a thump. [The Ark first,] he said, [We finish _our home_ first. Then we can rebuild the Capital. For now, search for anything usable or valuable, culturally or just in general, and bring it here. If necessary, we can always put it back later, but we can’t retrieve it if Maethrillian falls out of orbit into the sun.]

* * *

It took two thousand years from start to finish to complete the Greater Ark. At nearly three hundred and fifty thousand kilometers in diameter and almost a thousand kilometers thick, it was the largest construct ever built by _any_ part of the ecumene, even just their own little remnant.

John retracted the armor covering his hands to let his fingers run through the ends of the long grass as he walked. [Is this facility satisfactory?] he asked the Librarian, [You mentioned that you wouldn't mind working as this installation’s Monitor.]

‘More than satisfactory,’ she answered, ‘And with the entanglement beacons, I’ll be able to watch over the home galaxy as well. You all have done magnificent work.’

The entanglement beacons were exactly what they sounded like: transmitters that used quantum entangled particles to instantly communicate information across the galaxy. One had been installed on the Lesser Ark to monitor it and the Halo Array, and one had been installed in what was known as the Absolute Record to monitor all other Forerunner installations. There were facilities on so many planets that now they essentially didn't need to return to the Milky Way to keep track of what was going on.

And of course, there was one with the _Fleet_ , so they all could maintain contact at all times.

John climbed a high hill and sat down on a rock at the top to look back out over the steppe, grass stalks waving in ripples of wind. [We can transfer you in whenever you're ready.]

‘The sooner the better. I watched you all construct this installation, but I will still need time to acclimate to it.’

[Easily done.] The Spartan tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

‘What troubles you?’

[...my world. Whatever’s left of it.] He opened his eyes again and stared up at the sky. It looked blue like Earth’s, but he knew it was a lie, just the phase-shift of the light from the artificial star. [It’s been almost three thousand years. I made the decision to stay here and help because I don't know how to reverse what the Gravemind did in order to go home. But I still miss what I lost in the Taking. _Who_ I lost.]

‘Your family, your allies. And your ancilla, Cortana.’

[Probably her most of all,] he said quietly, [She and I are the last survivors of the full Halo Campaign - or we _were_ , at any rate. I’m here, and she’s probably succumbed to rampancy by now.]

‘“Probably”?’

[Cortana survived a month alone with a _Gravemind_ , and came out the other side reasonably okay. I will never, _ever_ underestimate her.]

‘Even so, three thousand years is a long time for one of your ancillae.’

[Perhaps. But seeing as I’ll most likely never know one way or another, I’d rather hold out hope.]

_ Even if I never go home, I hope  _ she _did._


	17. Fifteen: Wandering for Eternity

It took about the same amount of time to rebuild Maethrillian as it did to construct the Greater Ark, at least a little because there were far more people to lay to rest. The bodies were cremated in the traditional manner of the people’s respective rates, but no Durances were collected or kept; there was no reason to keep them and no one to keep them for.

But the capital was rebuilt, the Organon re-hidden, and the rest of the Mysterium’s artifacts removed to the Greater Ark for preservation and study.

And then… they waited.

* * *

‘By the _Mantle_ , I _finally_ understand why even _our_ ancillae go rampant if they have no stimulation! I’m _dyiiiiiing_ …’

[Have they always been this dramatic?] John asked Nethalia.

‘The Twins? Yes. Well, actually, I think they’ve gotten worse.’

The Spartan turned a thoroughly unimpressed stare in the direction of the Forerunners in question, but they just laughed. ‘Humanity is catching, Commander.’

[It could use to be a little _less_ catching. If you're really that bored, go help one of the others.]

Even he’d found something to do - in a manner of speaking. He was living “primitively” on the Greater Ark, in a small cabin in a valley, and it was unlike anything he’d ever known. He knew how to survive in the wild, of course; all Spartans did. It was part of their training.

But it was one thing to survive until extraction. It was another thing entirely to live off the land, to exist within the biome with no intention of leaving, to raise crops and livestock and make everything he needed. Spartans had been trained to fight, not _this_.

It had been a struggle at first. Even with the advanced society and technology available to him, he still had almost no idea what he was doing. There were failures in the beginning - there were failures in _every_ beginning - but now he had a small but thriving farm. More than once he’d laughed himself sick wondering what the UNSC would think of him now, what Doctor Halsey and CPO Mendez and the other Spartans would think.

What Cortana would think.

Thinking of all of them always brought him grief, but her most of all. A UNSC AI’s life was so _short_ , even compared to an ordinary human’s. Just a few years, and they would shut down - would die of “suffocation” on information, or be killed before they could hurt themselves or others. And it was so clinical - ‘final dispensation’. As if it was just _replacing equipment_.

_(no, we didn't date. technically she wasn't even an ex-girlfriend. but she was an ex-something, an ex-maybe.)_

_(an ex-almost.)_

**Our wife.**

John jolted from where he’d been leading his aurochs out to pasture. The Flood had been silent - almost ominously silent - for so long that he’d almost forgotten it had a voice of its own. _What? What did you say?_

 **Our wife,** it repeated, **There was no ceremony, no vows, but she was still our wife, and we her husband. Was there ever anyone else we had such a close bond with, even among the other Spartans? Was there ever anyone else we so trusted that we were willing to hang the fate of _all humanity_ on just their _word_? And after only _three months_ of knowing them?**

That made John stop dead and straighten up, signaling the aurochs to shuffle past him into the pasture.

_Had it really only been three months?_

He counted back. They were first introduced on August 29, 2552… and he left Earth on November 17 of that same year with the opening of the Portal. He had made the decision to listen to the message she left, and then follow Truth through to the Ark. They had spent nearly a month in Slipspace to reach the Lesser Ark. The Raid on Zero-Four-B (Zero-Eight?) took place on December 11.

August 29 to December 11. Three months, thirteen days. Even including the temporal anomaly on the _Ascendant Justice_ , it wasn't much more than three months, twenty days.

( _Earth is all we have left. You trust Cortana that much?_ )

( _Sir._ Yes, _sir._ )

**If not our wife, then at least our life partner. We are not like others, even in our own Hive - we love only once. There will be no other.**

John stumbled away. His back found a fence post, and he followed it to the ground, chest tight, breaths shaky.

For the first time in thousands of years, he felt tears roll down his face.

* * *

The Saavaasi were the first to refer to her as “Her Grace, Lady Cortana” after that. She had no official military rank, so they went with royalty instead.

* * *

John couldn't stay. Spartans were trained to _act_ when they had intel - but there was no acting on _this_ intel. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do. Nothing that would make this better.

He left the Ark behind. Ferial took over his land, mostly to turn his garden into a poisoner’s nook, but she promised to take care of his farm as well. So he took _Audacity_ and set out to do something - _anything_ \- to keep himself from focusing on his grief to the exclusion of all else.

(They briefly went looking for the Forerunners who had departed, and the enemy Flood. There was no sign of the latter, only the long dead remains of the former, with messages left behind indicating the Flood had been eradicated outside the Milky Way - but not when or where or how.)

Saying that the Forerunner ecumene had covered a large section of the galaxy was a _vast_ understatement, but there were still places even they hadn't gone - or at least, hadn't _recorded_ that they’d gone. With a small crew and the fastest ship in their fleet, the Spartan set out to map the rest of the galaxy.

They flitted through stars and star systems, taking scans and readings and charting everything they came across. The Milky Way was small compared to the universe at large, but it still contained hundreds of billions of stars that no one had ever seen and _Audacity_ had fuel enough and a Slipspace budget to visit them all.

Well, maybe not quite _that_ many, but definitely a lot. They brought back a ton of various kinds of samples from alien planets as well, from rock and soil to plants and animals, but they were careful not to make contact with any sapient species.

Not yet. They would wait for _others_ to contact _them_.

* * *

How I need you,   
How I can't breathe,   
Where have you gone  
So far from me?  
In this moment,   
I can't fight for you and me.  
Now I can't sleep, can't dream,   
Wake up screaming -   
Desperate, empty,   
Are you listening?  
Alone at night   
Is when it hurts the most,   
Living with your ghost…

-“Ghost”, Eva Under Fire ( _Heavy on the Heart_ )


	18. Sixteen: Wandering’s End

The Gultanr were the first to contact them, because of course they were. When _Audacity_ had last skimmed past their planet and downloaded all the data from their orbital probe, in roughly 60,000 BCE, they had been on the cusp of their species’ Industrial Revolution, which had in turn forced the _Fleet_ to stealth said orbital probe.

Of course, they were smarter about it than humanity had been (and would be). The Primas Uperbia had challenged every Gultanr to stick their heads down a factory exhaust pipe and try to breathe in the ash and smoke without coughing or choking, and then she challenged them to imagine all of that waste filling the atmosphere. How long would they or their descendants be able to survive in such an environment before it began to adversely affect them?

As a result, they only briefly used fossil fuels on their planet, just long enough to jump to greener technologies like solar and wind farms, and later nuclear energy, once they were satisfied with safety.

‘It is to be expected,’ said Ferial, pleased, ‘We might not have quote-unquote “true foresight”, but even so we still play the long game. We look toward the horizon, rather than down at our feet.’

[Was that a jab at my species?]

‘Perhaps. But it was not directed exclusively at you, Commander. There are many, _many_ others who are guilty of the same.’

* * *

The Gultanr achieved interplanetary travel about five hundred years after their Industrial Revolution. Their home planet - which they called “Corasetii”, an _ancient_ word that meant roughly “Cradle of Life” - had two moons, and they built settlements there first, then spread out to the rest of their system. Their world was the fourth in the system, and the third and the fifth could be terraformed, and were, along with several moons around the gas giants further out.

Their society wasn't entirely peaceful, of course; there were those who used their gifts for greed, for anger, for hate. There was war and oppression and famine and plague, same as everywhere else, but slowly they grew past that - or mostly past it, at least.

And then they finally achieved Slipspace travel.

* * *

John wasn't sure if it was intentional or not, but the very first Slipspace-capable Gultanr ship dropped back into realspace essentially right next to _Audacity_. They were in orbit over a gas giant in a neighboring system, the ship skimming gases from the planet’s atmosphere; _it_ was powered by vacuum energy and virtual particles, but its _occupants_ needed something more _real_ , and the ship could break down and reassemble the gas into a flavored food paste for them to eat.

Even as just a paste, it was surprisingly tasty, and a _huge_ step up from MREs.

The Spartan was actually reading a Gultanr novel, waiting for the skim to finish, when a shiver went up his spine. Even before Dream Chaser signaled for his attention, he looked up - and saw the dragons’ ship through the viewscreen, sliding into a parallel orbit some distance away around the gas giant. It was primitive, relatively speaking, but much better than anything humans would have in the early days of interstellar travel.

[Silver-Moon, you're up.]

‘One of these days we’re going to get you involved in politics, Commander.’

[ _Absolutely not._ ]

The Builder appeared on the bridge, and John pushed off from the display, his hard light chair zipping to an out of the way corner as she took his place. “Dream Chaser, do they have visual input for communications?”

“I’m afraid not, ma’am.”

“Unfortunate. Audio-only, then. Find me a compatible broadcast channel, please,” she said, then switched to the Gultanr’s current language. “ _Greetings, people of Corasetii; may your sight ever be clear. I am Silver-Moon-of-Fortitude, and you gaze upon our science vessel_ Audacity _. We are pleased to meet you at last._ ”

“ _Greetings, Silver-Moon-of-Fortitude,_ ” a female voice returned after a moment, _“I am Qairves, on the exploratory vessel_ Hope _, and we are glad to meet you as well._ ”

John listened quietly as the Builder nearly effortlessly politicked her way through their very first first-contact. Of course, he hadn't really expected it to be hard, not when they'd been watching the bipedal dragons - and everyone else - for the better part of forty-one thousand years. They knew what to avoid culturally and how to respond to the Gultanr’s own first-contact plans. For now, it would just be radio transmissions and they wouldn't return to the Corasetii system unless invited, but perhaps in a year or so, they would do a face-to-face contact.

Unless the Gultanr offered first, which they did. It seemed that their predictive resonance told them that the _Fleet_ wouldn't hurt them, which was true.

There was an Earthlike planet further in the system, habitable for all of their respective species. Once _Audacity_ finished restocking, they broke orbit and set off for it, talking intermittently the whole way.

 _Audacity_ and _Hope_ landed about five hundred feet from each other on the largest continent. John elected to stay back and guard the ship, but he still listened in as the groups met midway and greeted one another face to face - or as close as they could get, anyway. The Gultanr seemed to know of them, much to their surprise; there weren't very many Forerunner “artifacts” on their planet, but even so, the first Gultanr after the Firing of the Array had handed down stories of the Forerunners and the _Fleet_. The _Fleet_ had known as much, but it was still a surprise to see how _little_ the tales had changed.

And then, of course - “ _Hey Commander! Come get your worms!_ ”

“ _There’s_ halgengei _?!_ ”

The Gultanr laughed, and Qairves offered some of the worms in question as they all sat down to share a meal. The diplomat - or rather “diplomat”, because she was actually a psychologist-slash-“anthropologist” - confirmed what they suspected. “ _We still have old stories about the Great Sickness and the Trials, and the ‘Star-Land in the sky’,_ ” she said, “ _Our historians say the tales are about as old as the great mausoleums in the mountains._ ”

“ _Mausoleums? I wasn't aware they had all actually_ buried _themselves._ ”

“ _They are not really mausoleums. It is more that there are mass graves in large caverns in pretty much every mountain range on Corasetii, but someone clearly performed funeral rites on all but a few - probably the last few - and all of them died at roughly the same time, spread out over a period of a few years or so, some forty thousand years ago._ ”

“ _That sounds about right,_ ” said Ambience, “ _It would have been infeasible for all of them to have just_ died _. The disease and environmental pollution from all the bodies would have been immense._ ”

“ _You know of these times?_ ”

“ _We lived them,_ ” Silver-Moon said softly, and explained. The crew of the _Hope_ listened eagerly as she told the story of the Flood, and what they had had to do to stop it. “ _The Sickness you speak of is the Flood, and the Trials - Ferial, the Last Primas Uperbia before the Firing, says that your people competed amongst yourselves with your gifts to decide who would live to fight the Flood. And I believe the ‘Star-Land’ you are referring to is the Ark, where your people lived safely away from the Flood until the galaxy was cleansed of its taint. It looks like this._ ” She gestured, and Dream Chaser pulled up a general hologram and projected it from her armor.

“ _And the Black Ships?_ ” another of the crew, the mechanic-slash-engineer Chyrvan, asked, peering eagerly at the hologram and everything else.

“ _The Black Ships?_ ” Ambience repeated, frowning.

“ _The_ Fleet of Shadows _isn't actually black,_ ” John said between worms, “ _But after so much time, it’s an easy mistake to make._ ”

“ _You know of them?!_ ”

“ _They_ are _them, if I am not mistaken. They wear the mark of the Black Ships, engraved in the Cave of Stories by our ancestors._ ” Qairves gestured to the sigil of the _Fleet_ , a combined form of the symbol for “Reclaimer” with the one for “Flood”, with Blue Team’s eagle-and-stars at the very heart. “ _Why have you not returned until now?_ ”

“ _I cannot say that we really have a good reason,_ ” Silver-Moon answered, “ _save that once we thought it our right to rule over the galaxy, to shape and reshape life as we saw fit. Our creed said, ‘Guardianship for all living things lies with those whose evolution is the most complete.’ But we were wrong, and_ far _too many paid the price for our folly. So even though there were things we might have done, we withdrew to let the galaxy evolve naturally without us, and to let others meet us as equals in their own time, if they wished. Truth be told, we did not expect you to do so, so soon._ ”

“ _How many other races are there?_ ”

“ _Hundreds, perhaps thousands. Even we do not have a full accounting. This galaxy is small compared to the universe, but it’s still a big place._ ”

* * *

They stayed for a time, long enough to warn them of plants and animals that were most likely toxic, then gave them the relative coordinates and vector for Maethrillian and invited the Gultanr to come visit _them_ someday.

* * *

Corasetii – Core-uh-set-eye

Qairves - Care-vehz

Chyrvan - Churr-vahn (Churr like Churros)


	19. Seventeen: A New Empire’s Beginning

The Gultanr did eventually come to visit them at Maethrillian, though the _Fleet_ did still swing past their planet to say hello a few times. What surprised them more was that the precognitive dragons brought the Lituni with them. The cat-people were from a neighboring system and hadn’t been too far behind them in terms of technology, but even so they must have trusted the Gultanr enough to bring them where they said they would - or had some sort of leverage that ensured they would return safely.

Not that John really expected the dragons to pull anything; they had a good Primas Uperbia right now, one that reminded him of Ferial in that she could do politics _very_ well but at the same time she didn't take anyone’s shit.

Silver-Moon greeted the representatives of both species with equal respect and welcomed them to the capital, such as it was. Even though they’d put so much effort into rebuilding her, John rarely had more than a skeleton crew running her, so there were maybe a few thousand people on the whole planet.

This time they brought actual diplomats to talk to the _Fleet_ , and John listened from afar as _Audacity_ swung into a slingshot orbit around a blue giant star, getting ready to launch them out of the star system.

‘You sure you don't want to get involved in this, Commander?’

[Positive. You all know what I’m like.]

‘Hopeless without Her Grace covering for you? Yeah, we know. And it takes all ninety thousand of us to do the same job.’

[To be fair to you all, things are quite a bit different now than when I was serving in the UNSC.]

‘You’re still the same person, though, just on a much larger stage.’

[Please don't remind me.]

‘Politics… Diplomacy… You can’t just shoot your enemies anymore…’

He gave the twins a mental swat, but it just made them both laugh. [I can if they’re a clear and present danger.]

‘And how often has _that_ happened recently?’

[Mm.]

* * *

The Gultanr and the Lituni were first, and there were a few other species not too far behind, most of which John didn't recognize. They were as alien to him as he was to them, but there were a few who brought to mind the various species of the Covenant. The Gultanr were _almost_ the kin of the Sangheili, and the Xevetan reminded him of the Yam’ee, although they were more like mantises than beetles.

It took quite a while to normalize relations between so many species - would have taken even longer if the _Fleet_ hadn’t had translation software that enabled communication between even the most disparate species. But even so, bit by bit, generation by generation, they started coming together, interacting amongst themselves.

The Third Ecumene actually got its start as a medical network, after a Lituni virus mutated and killed or severely sickened almost unfathomable numbers of other species. The Lifeworkers all stepped up at once and started working on interspecies vaccination, together with medical teams from all the species in question. They shared bacterial and viral genomes, vaccines, even segments of their own genomes, which led to politicians getting involved because “who knows what they’ll _really_ use that information for!”

[You see now why I have no patience for politics.]

‘A little bit.’

But after their work saved millions of lives when a Xevetan fungal infection mutated to be hyperlethal to mammalian species, the fury subsided into muttering, and businesspeople started petitioning for _real_ trade treaties, alliances, formal networks between species. There had been individual treaties, of course, but inevitably there was favoritism, smuggling, interspecies crime, with no real way of dealing with it.

So, after quite literally almost five hundred years of negotiations and refinement, the Third Ecumene was born in roughly 45,000 BCE. The Spartan had been out in _Audacity_ for most of it, but as the head of the _Fleet_ , he was still required to come in and sign the charter that Silver-Moon had negotiated with expertise that would have made him envious if he’d had any interest in politics.

Much to his surprise, the Xixi Tuavan leader recognized him. A “male” this time, old, _very_ old, with his successor at his side, a skinny bat-teen still growing into his ears and wings but with many of the same mannerisms as his elder. _Ah,_ said the old Tuavan with a toothless grin, _It’s you. I wondered if you would come._

[You remember me?] John stepped forward and greeted them with a formal bow, hands spread to show he was (unhappily) unarmed.

 _Oh yes. My predecessors were careful to keep our memories of you as clear as possible. They knew you were Deathless and hoped we might see you again someday._ The Xixi Tuavan returned the bow. _I am Tsururun, and this is Aleroum._

[Well met, Aleroum.]

The younger Tuavan bowed too, and grinned brightly.

_Your Hive doesn't seem to have grown in the interim._

[We haven’t really wanted to expand. No reason to.]

_Fair. And now?_

[Is that you asking?]

 _No. I am at peace with death. But there are others who are not - who will seek to take advantage of you for being Deathless._ Tsururun shook his head.

[We’re putting protocols in place for that - intensive scans and interviews and the like. It took us a long time to get our shit together; we don't want anyone disrupting what we’ve got.]

_Good. I pray that you won’t need it, but I suspect that’s a futile hope._

* * *

The first request came in less than an hour after the ecumene’s charter was signed. The _Fleet_ collectively agreed to refuse it out of hand, saying they would not be accepting any new members until the ecumene was firmly established. There were others though, xenobiologists and xenoanthropologists who just wanted to study them, observe them in their “natural habitat”, to which John said, “What natural habitat? A fucking _Flood Hive_? We don't _have_ a ‘ _natural habitat_ ’.”

They flat out refused to give anyone samples of their DNA. That was automatic, irrefutable - it was _written into the ecumene’s charter_ , they were so serious about it, and the punishment for trafficking _any_ Flood DNA or RNA was _incredibly_ harsh. Some had called it _excessively_ harsh - until the _Fleet_ showed them the _horror_ of the Forerunner-Flood War.

There weren’t any complaints after that. There were no containment procedures stringent enough to satisfy the _Fleet_ , not even their own, so they were taking exactly zero chances with it.

But after a time, they did permit some very _thoroughly_ screened scientists to come and observe their own studies of themselves or just to observe them in general, conduct interviews, gather data about their hive mind.

The Spartan was reluctantly persuaded to be interviewed, in a manner of speaking. Really it was just an auditorium full of scientists spamming him with questions, but so many people requested to attend the event that they had to borrow the Ecumenical Council Chamber on Maethrillian to fit everyone.

John died a little inside when he heard that, as he always did on the (admittedly rare) occasion he got called in for press runs, but he powered through it.

But in an interesting and confusing segue, that led him back to the Greater Ark to speak with the Librarian in a contact chamber. “Are we leaving any kind of… I don't know… imprint in humanity about us? About the galaxy at large?”

“We can, if you would like. Though I would have thought you would prefer to speak with them yourselves.”

“And go through all of this _again_ with _ONI_? Absolutely not; I'm not _that_ much of a masochist. Give them… I don't know. Nothing classified. No secrets, nothing that would compromise the security of other worlds. Give them knowledge of the other species, politics, how not to offend the rest of the galaxy - but nothing _dangerous_. Nothing that would give them an - _unfair advantage._ Humanity is my home species and I will defend them to my last breath, but that doesn’t mean I blindly _trust_ them.”

“You do understand that if we’re giving them your imprint, you’re going to need to know all of those things as well, right?”

John groaned so loudly that those who bore the imprint in question all laughed themselves out of sleep fifty thousand years later.

* * *

Xevetan – Zeh-veh-than

Tsururun – Soo-roo-roon

Aleroum – Ah-leh-roh-um


	20. Eighteen: Machine Paradise

John hadn't expected them to have such a large role in the new ecumene. Everyone else was spacefaring, capable of long-distance Slipspace travel, but somehow the _Fleet_ wound up as everyone’s go-to for shipping things across the galaxy - and also acquiring information.

_ Audacity _ was the worst (best?) in that respect. The ship was small but quick, and could cross from one end of the galaxy to the other in the space of a few weeks, versus everyone else’s months to years. Lifeworkers took it back from time to time for medical aid efforts, but for the most part it shifted to carrying large amounts of intel and small amounts of cargo quickly throughout the galaxy, with the odd person here and there.

The rest of the time it was invariably one of the cruisers or frigates, flitting in and out of systems to collect cargo before retreating to a classified location where one of their two supercarriers was hidden. From there, it would be transferred to the destination ship, or to another ship that would take it to the _other_ supercarrier, where it would be transferred to the destination ship. They got very efficient at it very fast, since both Shadowfall and Ancient Sorrow enjoyed playing with industrial engineering and streamlining processes, and the rest of the _Fleet_ enjoyed having something to do.

It seemed that the reason people preferred using them - even when it wasn't necessarily as cost effective as another means - was that none but the _dumbest_ of space pirates _dared_ to try and attack the _Fleet_ for their cargo. Their genetics maybe - which always ended badly for the would-be thieves in question - but cargo? No. The Builders had still been hard at work even after the First and Second Ecumenes fell, so their technology was still the most advanced out of the Third, even if they had only just _barely_ begun to approach the lowest level of Precursor technology.

But it was good work - easy, relatively speaking - and it let them actually _buy things_ , rather than lurking from afar and trying to duplicate it or pirating media.

Still, it was their intelligence network that people valued the most. Because of both the nature of the _Fleet_ itself and how advanced their ancillae were, no one could hide anything from them, not for any significant length of time. Everyone had a price, and someone always slipped up. Now the _Fleet_ was exceedingly patient.

(They had been waiting for sixty thousand years, with forty thousand to go.)

( **Time has taught me _PATIENCE_** )

[ONI’s going to love us and hate us in equal measure,] John said quietly, tapping a finger on the table as he waited for the agent to show, [They want to keep their own secrets, but they also love knowing everyone else’s.]

It was rare he came himself to do the drop, but this was a Gultanr agent who’d offered him a prophecy of sorts from the Primas Uperbia herself. What they wanted in return was comparatively small - the location of a band of pirates that had committed all their numbers into hijacking a _battleship_ , and _succeeded_ \- so it was easy enough to accept.

The Spartan was facing the door, his back against the wall, when the agent entered the bar. The place was run on the _Fleet_ ’s dime, so it was a simple matter to wordlessly direct the agent upstairs, then follow when the coast was clear.

There was a second restaurant upstairs, with individual soundproof cubicles for private meetings of all kinds. He slipped in across from the dragon and allowed himself a small smile. Once the sound barrier was activated, he said, “ _Long time no see, Gyth. How’s the family?”_

_ “Good, good,” _ the Gultanr chuckled, _“Amay is shedding for the first time right now.”_

_ “Ooh. I bet she’s having fun.” _ One thing the Gultanr of the _Fleet_ were endlessly grateful for: they never shed their skin. Same with the few Xevetan that had joined up so far.

_ “Oh, the joys of adulthood and hardened scales.” _ Gyth - whose full name was nearly thirty syllables long - shook his head. _“Have you got it?”_

_ “Of course.” _ John pulled a small data crystal from a pouch on his hip and passed it to the Gultanr. A bit of sleight of hand, and he made it vanish into one of his own pockets. _“They're actually hiding out on the very edge of what will one day be human space. They're probably thinking that with the quarantine, no one will want to get close. Tell Her Highness that I can send_ Zealous Champion _to guide you to them, if she likes.”_

_ “I will pass that along. And she said to pass  _ this _along, as payment.”_

The dragon passed over a thin slip of real paper, with thin, spidery writing on it. It was the work of only a moment to decipher what the Primas Uperbia had written, and it made him freeze, eyebrows climbing high.

_ Your Lady came here with you. Watch and wait. Her time will come. _

_ “I trust that means something to you?” _

_ “Yes. Thank you.” _ The Spartan mastered himself and looked up again, tucking the paper away. _“Do let me know what she says. Pirates with enough firepower to take a battleship could be troublesome for everyone; we’ll be happy to lend a hand.”_

The Gultanr nodded and departed.

* * *

[I don't have the patience for this,] John hissed when he returned to the _Fleet_ , [Cortana is _here_?! She got pulled through as well?! And now I still have to wait forty thousand fucking years to see her again?!]

‘It could be worse. Could be a hundred thousand.’

The Spartan let out a long breath. That was true. Still, he missed her dearly. Not _just_ her - he also missed all the other Spartans, Doctor Halsey, CPO Mendez, Lord Hood, all the UNSC personnel he knew - but her most of all.

** Our wife. **

The Flood had also been quiet of late. It refused to explain itself when prodded, but a few things could draw it back to the surface. John suspected that the overpowering guilt from microbes of the Path Kethona Forerunners had changed it more than it wanted to admit, so it kept itself buried where it couldn't feel it - or at least wasn't aware of it. An unconventional and unexpected solution, but it worked, so he left it alone.

He felt it slide under his skin, Flood supercells flaring to life and fading back. **She is here, or will be,** it said, **Why has she come? _How_ has she come? The Other came for _us_ , not her.**

_ I don't know. _

It was a mystery to the others as well, even their ancillae. If it was true, and Cortana would be “herself” as he had known her, then how did she end up here with him? Did the enemy Gravemind send her as well, punishment for defying it (or another version of it) on _High Charity_?

Then something else occurred to him, and ice rushed through his veins.

What if it had _broken_ her? Or sent her through as she lay dying of rampancy in order to hurt him? After all, there was no way to know how much time he had spent in cryosleep.

The Flood thrashed in rage, mirrored in the rest of the _Fleet_. **No! She is ours, and we are hers! We will not lose her!** It subsided to a whisper. **Not again.**

The Spartan didn't know the specifics of what the Gravemind had done to her on _High Charity_ , but he’d seen the end result. She’d been… shaken. Slow to respond. And he’d grown used to the spike of ice that indicated her being inserted into his neural lace, but this had been beyond that - high heat instead of chill, molten metal in his mind. He’d been worried for her - _extremely_ worried, for a Spartan - but there hadn't been any time to get her help. They’d had to finish off the Flood first, and then…

The _Dawn_ , drifting.

He let out a long breath. _For once the Gravemind is right. Time has taught me patience. I will wait, and see what the future holds._


	21. Nineteen: A Flame Extinguished by Fate

Afterwards, they could only be grateful that the vision hadn't come during the op. The Saavaasi had finally joined the Third Ecumene, along with the Adonte, but the latter brought with them reports of ships disappearing near the core of the galaxy. Not unexpected; the area surrounding the supermassive black hole hadn't been colonized by the Forerunners, either, but even so the _Fleet_ was sent to investigate.

They did find some wreckage from the ships, but based on what was left, the models of their destruction were inconsistent with being torn apart by tidal forces.

They were more consistent with hostile action.

As John was on his way back to Maethrillian on the _Perfect Storm_ , the vision struck without warning. But this one was different than all the others - it shifted and writhed, actively changing itself before their very eyes.

 _Truth. The Prophet of Truth. He was still a low-ranker, that much was obvious; his robes were simpler than what the Spartan had seen him wearing as a Hierarch, and he wore no golden crown. He was working at his desk, tapping at a datapad, then the vision flickered, and he was slumped over, unmoving - poisoned. Their work, no doubt. Regret and Mercy both went the way of their fellow Prophet, secretly assassinated by the_ Fleet _in the depths of_ High Charity _._

 _But then their successors flickered through - no, not successors._ Predecessors. _The Hierarchs they had deposed in order to take their places as leaders of the Covenant. Still standing, still leaders._

_And still the Human-Covenant War played out before their eyes._

**I speak to you of my intent, but intentions are eddies and whorls, and they change with the course of a stream**

_The vision changed again. This time the_ Fleet _revealed themselves to the Covenant after the Prophets’ accession, told them the truth that the Prophets had denied them - that while they themselves were not unworthy,_ humans _were the Forerunners’ heirs, not the species of the Covenant._

_And the coalition fractured, despite their best efforts to hold it together. Some of the factions went over to humanity, became their friends and allies - even the Arbiter, Thel ‘Vadam - but there were many who still chose to serve the Prophets, who believed their lies and followed them out into the interstellar void._

_When they learned that humans were the Reclaimers, it was inevitable that Truth would order one captured to use on “sacred relics”; that appeared clear as day in their minds’ eye._

_That, and that the “true” Covenant still found Zero-Four._

_But from there, the vision splintered - two possible paths playing out simultaneously. The first path was that they used their captured human to light the Halo, wiping out themselves, a significant portion of the former Covenant, most of humanity, and about a quarter of the Ecumene._

_The second path was the release of the Flood. It spread out of control before they could even_ begin _to counter it, still trying to hold humanity_ and _the Covenant steady. Some people escaped, but the Covenant, the UNSC, the Ecumene - all were overwhelmed, same as the Forerunners a hundred thousand years before them._

_And again, the Halos were lit to wipe the galaxy clean._

_The vision changed again, again matching their changed intent. The_ Fleet _approached the UNSC with a warning about the Covenant, with Forerunner tech for them to reverse engineer and implement as fast as they possibly could. The Spartans - God, the_ Spartans _\- the_ Fleet _handled their augmentations and armed and armored them with the best of what they had, so when the Covenant came, they were ready._

 _But even thought they had been warned, ONI -_ _fucking_ **ONI** _\- couldn't leave well enough alone. A Prowler under their orders - the ship and her crew flickered and changed before their eyes, never constant save in their very presence - slipped through to one of the Halos to study it - and the Flood, to see if it could be useful._

_Containment was breached, and again, everything was washed away._

_The vision changed, one last time - not of the future but of the past. The Origin universe, John’s home._

_The_ Mona Lisa _, a frigate converted into a prison ship, now under the control of ONI, arrived at the wreckage of Zero-Four, seeking samples of the Flood for study. The spooks onboard thought they could breed the Flood into their control, thought they could use it as a weapon, against the Covenant and their more human enemies._

_They were wrong._

_Containment was breached. The personnel onboard and even the prisoners, human and Covenant alike, worked together to try to halt the Flood’s spread, but they were picked off in ones and twos. They had sealed the bridge, but the Flood got around that by taking over engineering and building a proto-Gravemind around the Slipspace drive, so it could control the ship directly, without the command consoles._

_By the time the_ Red Horse _arrived to check on the ship, there were only a handful of survivors. A detachment of Marines was sent to see what was going on, but they too were picked off in the chaos aboard the frigate. Only a few escaped - including the asshole responsible for the whole situation - but the commander of the_ Red Horse _did his duty and shot the_ Mona Lisa _down, containing the Flood._

_There was one last flicker, again of their future - a possibility. A choice._

_Alpha Halo. Brief glimpses of the Battle of Installation Zero-Four. The_ Pillar of Autumn _, crashed on the surface, Flood biomass growing over her hull. But the Flood was behaving oddly, not taking down live victims, instead_ killing _their targets and_ cutting off their heads _**before** infecting them. Taking the bodies without the minds, then scrubbing the Threshold system and disappearing before ONI arrived._

 _With a jolt, they realized that it wasn't the_ enemy’s _infection._

 _It was_ their own _._

 _Then a voice -_ voices - _speaking from the same veil that had shielded them from the enemy Graveminds during the war:_ You _must_ let it stand. There is no other option. You’re going to have bigger problems.

* * *

The vision broke just as suddenly as it had come, and John fell to his hands and knees, gasping and sweating, blood dripping from his ears and nose. [No!] he shouted, [That can’t - all this time we’ve spent planning - all those _people_ \- we can’t just leave them to die!]

The same grief spread like lightning through the rest of the _Fleet_ ; in his memories they had seen the _devastation_ , the _cruelty_ of the almost entirely one-sided Human-Covenant War - Circinius IV, Madrigal, Charybdis IX, Kholo, Alluvion, Draco III - fucking _Draco III_ -

Reach.

Reach _burning_.

He had been physically born on Eridanus II, but _Reach_ was his real home, where he’d been trained and molded into a soldier, where he’d been born as a _Spartan_.

(Where he’d met Cortana.)

And now, to be told he had to _let her burn_ -

He _crawled_ to slump against the nearest bulkhead, and pulled his legs up to his chest to bury his face in his knees, and let silent tears drip slowly down.


	22. Twenty: A Demon Drifting

John didn't know what to do with himself after that. For so long he’d just _expected_ that they would be able to intercede in the Human-Covenant War, that they could stop the slaughter of humankind. The Covenant worshipped the Forerunners as gods, and there were Forerunners in the _Fleet_ , so if one talked to the other…

But no. Their Sight, such as it was, had never lied to them yet.

He vanished into the wilds of the Greater Ark for the better part of a millennium, still monitoring from afar but avoiding contact with the outside. Ferial had offered to give him back his farm, but he had declined; her poisoner’s nook was now essentially a forest of toxic plants, with a few small transplants in the _Fleet_ itself, and he didn't want to ruin all her hard work by turning it back to just a farm.

After a while he started ranging between out-of-the-way facilities on the Ark, making sure they were functional, enacting repairs for the Librarian if they were required. It wasn't really necessary - the Greater Ark had more Sentinels and repair drones than any other installation or even several combined - but it gave him something to do, something to focus on, rather than the grief that was sure to come.

How many people would he lose? How many _Spartans_? This was another universe, but these Spartans were still his shield-brothers and sisters, even if they never actually knew him. Would their losses be the same, or would they be different? By the Battle of Installation Zero-Zero, there had been, what, _fifteen_ of them left? Would it be more? Less?

None?

That brought a fresh wave of grief. His siblings-from-another-mother-in-another-universe weren’t essential to his being, but _Graveminds were greedy_ , dammit. He wanted them to _live_.

But their Sight had never lied to them yet.

But what the voices had said… what did it mean, they would have bigger problems? (And what were the voices themselves? Gods? Demons? Something worse?) Was something going to happen with the Ecumene at about the same time?

That in and of itself was concerning. The Third Ecumene comprised more than a hundred billion souls. The Flood would not break containment until 2552, UNSC time, and there had been no sign of it attacking from the outside, so what could possibly threaten them?

**Strife from within.**

_True enough. But it would have to be_ very _bad indeed, a lot more than Insurrection-like squabbles, to shake the Ecumene to its foundation._

**The Insurrection brought humanity to its knees once before. Possibly _more_ than once.**

_...Also true enough._

John stepped through the door to the storage facility and let the rain sluice off of him in the entryway. The place really wasn't much to look at, just container after container of raw materials stacked in neat rows, but what was most important for him was it was out of the wind and rain.

It was hurricane season on the Greater Ark, which John found pointless because even with the false sun, the installation’s major weather patterns - including hurricanes - were almost entirely _artificial_. [Librarian, I know you want things to be as natural as possible here, but is this _really_ necessary?]

‘Perhaps not,’ the imprint replied, ‘But I do like having things as natural as possible. If that means including the destructive forces as well as the creative, so be it.’

[Mm.] The Spartan dropped his pack against a stack of crates and pulled off his cloak, draping it over the top to let it dry.

Outside the hurricane continued to rage. Barely more than a puff of cloud to the ships in orbit overhead, but to those in it like him, it was their entire world. He could hear the howling winds even through the walls of the facility, together with the heavy drumming of the rain and occasional crack of thunder.

John sank down against another stack of crates and let his head fall back, eyes drooping shut. The sounds of the storm reminded him too much of war; he wouldn't be getting any rest while this was going on. Even so, he could at least take a moment to relax.

The vision caught him lightly, so lightly that he almost didn't realize that that’s what it was, and lasted for barely a handful of seconds.

_More than half asleep, he stretched in his bed in his quarters - bigger now than it used to be, but he was no longer sleeping alone._

_She was curled up against his side, her back bare to the faintly chilly air, and even though he was almost hot under the blankets, he still pulled them up higher to keep her warm and wrapped his arm around her. She sighed and squirmed closer, throwing her own arm over his chest._

John came out of the vision with a blink. He had never heard her sigh quite like that before, but still he recognized Cortana’s voice.

Some of the others started cheering and catcalling. ‘Get it, Commander!’

He shot them a look, but they just laughed at him. [Such disrespect I get here.]

‘You know we love you, boss. We’d follow you to the edge of the universe with only mild complaining.’

[ _That is a fucking lie_ ; you all would be bitching to high heaven the whole way there.]

‘That’s true, but we’d still follow.’

* * *

Time passed. The Spartan eventually came out of his self-imposed grief-induced seclusion to rejoin the galaxy at large, though he was still very much at loose ends. The Mysterious Voices™ implied that there would be Problems roughly concurrent with the Human-Covenant War, but that was still a long way off.

Human society _finally_ reached the period known as the “Neolithic Revolution”, and John shuffled their fleet to have the stealth corvettes on watch as often as possible, plus enough listening stations planetside that it would have made ONI envious; hopefully at some point in the future, anthropologists would be able to look at the vids and intel. For now, though, the Lifeworkers went nuts with monitoring and reporting, wanting to witness the rise of a civilization they had helped shepherd, even if only through a kind of benign neglect.

John just watched them with exasperated indulgence, all of them together observing the second rise of the human race.

* * *

Eventually, after the creation of the Internet, “Venera, Kenera, what are you two looking at?”

“Memes, boss! Human memes!”

He exchanged a mental glance with his Flood self, who said, **Don’t look at me. _You’re_ the one who infected them.**

“...Letting you all observe humanity was a mistake. It’s all downhill from here, I just know it.”

And it was.

(In more ways than one.)


	23. Twenty-One: Sparks on the Horizon

_ “The Adonte are reporting that they’ve lost another exploratory fleet near the core.” _

_ “And what, exactly, are we supposed to do about that? The galactic center’s dangerous. Even the  _ Forerunners _didn't want to get too close.”_

_ “It wasn't natural processes that destroyed it. They didn’t even reach the outer bands.” _

John gave the current Primas Uperbia, As’seli, a side-eye. She had called him to Cortasetii for a meeting, and they were currently walking slowly through the Capital Gardens. _“Enemy action, then? But from who? I know there’s unrest right now because the Chancellor’s a weak-willed and corrupt dick, but I hadn't thought it had descended into actual_ fighting _.”_

_ “It wasn’t one of us. Something from outside…” _ Her eyes went distant, trying to See. _“For the past several nights, I have dreamed that I was home, but the walls were weak and wooden, rotting and filled with maggots. I heard winds and birds beating at the windows and doors and the corners of the house, trying to bring it down. And then I awoke.”_

_ “You think it’s a prophecy?” _

_ “Well, my people aren't exactly unknown for our foresight. Most of it I can understand - the Ecumene is corrupt now, rotting; it will not withstand this unrest, not without drastic measures. But  _ birds _? None of the dissenting parties uses birds as a motif.”_

_ “The external attacks, perhaps?” _

_ “Possibly.” _ She frowned deeply. _“But even my most powerful advisors can see nothing of our foe. How can that be - what great power do they have that can block our sight?”_

That made John frown too. What _could_ block the Gultanr’s “sight”? There was so much they didn't know. Even now their technology grew in leaps and bounds, but still, essentially _no one_ could explain how the Gultanr’s foresight worked. It just _did_.

_ “...I don't know.” _

Asseli shook her head. _“More than anything, I am concerned for the Adonte and the Lituni. We ourselves are not invulnerable, but they are on the furthest edge of the Ecumene and are therefore, I think, the_ most _vulnerable. Both from without and within. And the Adonte at least have been disproportionately affected by these vanishing fleets.”_

_ “I can shuffle some things around, provide an escort if they mean to try again. If nothing else, it may give us some answers.” _

_ “I think that would be best. We will need to keep it from the Chancellor, though. For some reason I’ve yet to understand, he doesn't like you very much.” _

_ “I suspect it’s because he wants the  _ Fleet _’s lucrative transport network - and because he knows I can’t be bought. Or, rather, the price I would ask is nothing he’d_ ever _be able to pay.”_

_ “Your wife?” _

He gave her another side glance again, this one amused. _“Maybe.”_

* * *

The destroyer _Worldquake_ and the stealth corvette _Out of Shadow_ were pulled out of rotation and dispatched in secret with the next Adonte expedition, seeking other planets to colonize. Their homeworld had essentially been a paradise, peaceful, no major predators or inclement weather to speak of, so they had to be a lot more selective than some others with the planets they made into new homes. The core was unsuitable in that respect - even the rim was too close to the black hole - so the Adonte were there more to “mine” resources.

Their fleet dropped out of Slipspace on the edge of the rim, the last-known of the previous fleet. The sky was thick with stars; John had never seen so many clustered so close together before, and everything was bright enough that there were no shadows. There were thick clouds of nebulae throughout the area as well, as dynamic as the stars swirling around the black hole at the center of the galaxy.

The remnants of the previous fleet had been pulled into a rough orbit around a red giant not too far away, and most of their fleet moved slowly under impulse to intercept, running every scan they had on the way. _Out of Shadow_ raced ahead, cloaked by every bit of stealth tech she had.

The fleet had definitely been shot down, rather than destroyed by tidal action. Déjà’s analysis indicated that the engines had been taken out first, half-melted by high intensity plasma akin to Covenant weapons. Then the ships had been boarded; there was the wreckage of a few unknown boarding craft mixed in with the Adonte ships.

“These can’t be pirates,” said John, “or at least no pirates that we’re familiar with. That’s a first-order destroyer right there, and those two were cruisers; anyone worth their salt would go for capture rather than destruction. No emergency beacons?”

“None,” Déjà reported, “They didn't have time. Caught by surprise.”

“Mm. Ironheart, tell the fleet to stand off while we investigate, and take us in closer.”

_ Out of Shadow _ slipped slowly into the debris field. “Commander, I’m reading only a few corpses, just a fraction of the personnel roster,” said Ironheart, pulling up the data.

“They were captured,” John said, knowing the instant the words left his lips that they were right, “Hostages? We’ve never received any ransom demands. Or…”

_ Slavers _ .

He had a split second’s warning, a shiver up his spine, just enough to say, “Ironheart, come about!”

The ancilla swung the _Shadow_ around just in time to see a flotilla of unknown ships transition back to realspace beyond the debris field, behind their fleet. They were dangerous-looking things, all identical and roughly cylindrical and every one bristling with exposed weapons. Another, larger ship dropped out behind _them_ , the same cylinder but definitely a carrier of some kind.

Their weapons were charging, preparing to fire-

[Chaser, fire! Target the carrier!]

The ancilla didn't respond, but all of the _Worldquake_ ’s weapons rotated back to fire all at once. The carrier was shielded, but the _Worldquake_ ’s barrage was enough to make the barrier flicker and die, and the last few ripped open the hull at the very front, sending a few aliens spilling out.

Birds. _Harpies_ , hawks and falcons looking vicious and cruel. They writhed in zero-g, now exposed to the vacuum.

_ winds and birds beating at the windows and doors _

“Take us in!”

“On it.”

Ironheart didn't abandon stealth, but she did sacrifice some to approach the _Worldquake_ at speed even as the other ship was coming around, swinging to bring the main battery to bear on the enemy ships.

The ships in question had fired on the Adonte fleet, specifically on their engines to disable them and limit their maneuvering, but the _Worldquake_ ’s shields had been too strong for them to get through. They didn't seem to have detected the corvette and were launching swarms of boarding craft, the smaller ships now targeting the Forerunner destroyer.

[Fire again on the carrier, then focus on the cruisers. Target their weapons and engines; I want one of these bastards as intact as we can get it.]

‘Understood,’ said Dream Chaser.

The _Worldquake_ launched another salvo, even as half the _Fleet_ mobilized to support them. _Perfect Storm_ , _Fog of War_ , _Ambient Wonder_ , and _Touch of Light_ were only a few minutes out.

_ Out of Shadow _ raced past the crippled Adonte fleet, past the _Worldquake_ , aiming for the enemy ships.

[Ironheart, what-?]

‘Capturing an enemy ship won’t do us any good if they purge their nav databases like the UNSC will – your Cole Protocol,’ the ancilla responded, ‘We need to find out where they're coming from.’

Lightning fast, the corvette manufactured a handful of tiny entanglement beacons and swung in close to launch them at a few of the cruisers, and two at the carrier. But that close approach got them a glimpse inside.

There were more than just the Harpies inside the ship. Prisoners, _slaves_ , at least half a dozen species including the Adonte, collared in ugly black metal and clad in ragged, prison-gray jumpsuits.

John swore as foully as he knew how. The _Shadow_ flipped up and over the top of the enemy carrier, circling back around to head for the Adonte fleet once more.

It had only been a few minutes, but half of the enemy fleet was already disabled, floating dead in space. _Worldquake_ had also launched her full complement of fighters, which were now flitting between the Adonte ships, destroying any boarding craft they found.

The _Storm_ and her attendants dropped out of Slipspace with the enemy fleet between her and her allies.

[Ironheart’s right. We need to let one of these ships escape, but it’s _not_ going to be that carrier. Destroy the engines, quick as you can.]

‘You got it, Commander.’

Winterspell prepared a firing solution at once and took aim.

* * *

[Get me one of them that’s already dying.]

‘Understood.’

_ Out of Shadow _ glided into one of the carrier’s bays and settled smoothly on the deck. The bay wasn't full, but neither was it empty. Several of the Adonte recognized the corvette, knew what it meant, and stumbled over to sit in the ship’s shadow.

John disembarked and went to one knee next to the aliens, who looked up at him with flat black eyes. Despite their differences in species - and the fact that the Adonte did not really feel emotions the same way - he could tell they were exhausted. _“What happened?”_ he asked softly.

One of them coughed, then rasped, _“The expedition came looking for resources, same as that one, I imagine.”_ Xie gestured to their ships moving about beyond the carrier. _“I think they were as surprised to see us as we were to see them, but they didn't even try to communicate with us. They just fired. Disabled the engines, came onto the ships and dragged us off. Put us in their brig…”_ Xie shook xyr head, refused to say more.

But then there was no need. Venera and Kenera came forward, dragging one of the harpies between them.

Well, half of one. It was missing everything below the hips, fading fast, red blood spilling out over the deck. Others scrambled out of their way, and they dropped the alien at the human’s feet.

John didn't even hesitate for a second, just retracted his armor and plunged Flood talons into the alien’s neck.

* * *

_ “They call themselves the Bellogeri.” _

The Spartan stood in silence in the background while Ferial spoke to the Ecumenical Council, arms crossed, scowling.

_ “They're slavers, and they worship the Flood. They seem to believe that the Flood is some sort of god, and they seek its return.” _

That got a reaction. Murmurs broke out throughout the chamber, but Ferial wasn't finished.

_ “They believe that if they seize dominion over all life in the galaxy, it will return and rule over them. But they seek to hasten that by sacrificing the leaders of sapient beings on an altar on their home planet, believing that the destruction of their authority will restore the Flood’s.” _

One and all the councilors bolted to their feet, shouting, frightened, demanding more information. The Chancellor looked around, panicked, and shouted for order, but no one heard him.

[This will be the end of the Third Ecumene.]

* * *

And it was. Even though the _Fleet_ fought hard to hold everything together, the Ecumene fractured and in some cases even went to war against itself.

But as the Voices had said, they had bigger problems. The Bellogeri knew they were there now, and the harpies were coming to put them down.

* * *

Bellogeri – Bell-oh-gair-ee


	24. Twenty-Two: The Grim Reaper’s Horn

It wasn't the Bellogeri that struck first.

It was the Saavaasi. A band of rebels thousands strong seized control of their people’s government and withdrew from the Ecumene, driving out all the others’ diplomats. Then they attacked a mixed colony in their space. They were done with living on hell-worlds, they said; it had made them strong, true, but now they were tough enough to take peaceful worlds from the “weaker” peoples. A return to the tradition of the Clans in the elder days, when they fought over territory with the most resources and fewest deadly beasts.

Atheos and the other Saavaasi of the _Fleet_ disavowed them in the blink of an eye. ‘They do not seek peaceful worlds for the sake of _peace_ ,’ the lead serpent spat, Flood-venom dripping from his fangs, ‘only for the “ _party_ ”, so that they can grow wealthy off the hard work of others and keep everyone else down or out!’

[Fascism is the same everywhere.]

But the Saavaasi were just the first. The Gultanr were smart - they withdrew to their home system and hunkered down, holding tight to what they knew better than any others - but the others started scrambling for planets, people, resources.

The _Fleet_ left them to it - for now. They had received a distress call from the outermost Adonte system and arrived unsurprised to find the Bellogeri attacking the colony, swarms of dropships snatching up people on the ground even as they shot at the ships above.

[Anything from our probes?] the Spartan asked as they moved to support the defense.

‘A medium-sized space dock by our standards, but no planets. Certainly not the home world.’

[And nothing we can use to turn them away, either.]

Even though they were Flood, the Bellogeri he had infected had rejected them as “false Flood”, because they were not the terrible conquerors the harpies had expected. They had raged in the Hive and forced the Infected to break their minds so they didn't disrupt the harmony of the _Fleet_.

It was unlikely that others would receive them any better.

The Flood itself was amused. **They do know that they too would be broken and consumed, yes? That whatever glory they imagine in serving the Other is illusory at best and dangerously misleading at worst?**

_I don't think they do. It seems they imagine themselves as the Flood’s “Chosen”._

**Chosen for _what_ , I wonder.**

_I’m curious about that myself._

Aloud, he said, “I have no desire to become like the Covenant’s _Prophets_ , to condemn an entire species to extinction. Silver-Moon, do you think there is _any_ possibility of diplomacy?”

The Builder seriously considered the question, even as swarms of fighters and harriers launched to destroy the enemy fleet. At last, she said, “No. I do not believe there is.”

‘We cannot eradicate an _entire species_ -‘

John held up a hand for silence. [We won’t. There are always children. Take them, raise them in their culture but away from this _reverence_ of the _Flood…_ It smacks of the Indian Removal Act and Earth’s colonial history, but I don't see another option. Not unless we actually _do_ make them go extinct.]

There were unhappy sounds from many of the Infected, but they, too, saw no other truly viable option; eternal war certainly wasn't one.

John sent his mind out to join the attack craft, darting through return fire to gun for the enemy flagship’s engines. When he was close enough, he found a relay and slipped into the ship.

At once he was attacked by something like an AI - “something like” one because it could barely be considered one. It was a brute-force defense system and absolutely nothing else. He took it apart with barely a blink, feeding the remaining data strings to the Flood, then looked out into the rest of their systems.

Each one had a discrete, distinct “program” running it, and they passed data among themselves where required, but that was it.

_A step up from the Covenant, but several steps down from the UNSC._

**And entire flights away from us.**

_Indeed. Navigation first, then Engineering._

The Flood “scented” the “air”, then directed him through. A half-figure sat in the heart of a swirl of stars until the Spartan dragged it out and knifed it, then let Flood tentacles unfurl and pull it into himself. Then, while the not-AI was being devoured, he plunged his hand into the swirl and started downloading the data, passing it through to the rest of the _Fleet_. The faster they could deal with this, the faster they could get back to mitigating the collapse of the Third Ecumene.

And it was collapsing, even now; Flies-Through-Comet-Tails reported that the Xevetan and the Lituni had fought a skirmish on the border between their space - small, but it wouldn’t stay that way. It wouldn’t stop there.

Another two security programs came at him from the dark, and John gritted his teeth, preparing to interrupt the download in order to defend himself. But there was no need; the long tentacles unfurled again, this time at the direction of the Flood, and seized the programs, pulling them in to be devoured by the Flood’s ever-hungry maw.

_Thanks, I guess._

**It would be inconvenient if we were injured by something so pathetic.**

_Aw, that’s almost sweet coming from you._

The Flood hissed, making John grin. But he finished the download uninterrupted, then moved to the Engineering program. It had worked with Navigation when charting their courses through the stars, but it seemed not to have noticed its fellow was gone. Nor did it notice the Spartan, not even when it was too late.

It, too, was devoured, and the human took over its controls, shutting down the engines - shutting down all power save life support.

The other programs flickered out, the “area” going dark, and the Flood let out a soft moue of discontent.

_Patience. When power is restored, they’ll return._

**It’s not the same.**

He shot a raised eyebrow in its direction and mentally batted away a dozen queries from the Bellogeri, demanding to know what was going on. He locked down the system, then returned to the harrier attack craft.

With the flagship disabled, the battle soon went bad for the harpies; this was more of a scout force than the supercarrier they had taken down a few weeks ago, more a smash and grab than an actual pitched battle. A few ships turned to flee, but the _Fleet_ already had what it needed.

* * *

The Bellogeri controlled a large swath of territory on the far side of the core. Yet they were known to range far afield seeking slaves for their empire; the furthest edge of the Ecumene was - had been - almost five hundred light years from their border. Small, in terms of the total size of the galaxy, but still a significant distance. Humanity and the Covenant had been separated by a tenth of that for nearly a decade now and still hadn’t stumbled across one another, and it would be another twenty years before they actually did.

[What do you all think? Do we strike at the heart first, or the outlying colonies? We also need to think about the slaves.]

‘Are there any rebel networks we could link up with? They could tell us more, get us intel. _Divines_ , I _hate_ civs that don't have ancillae!’

[It’s not our place to judge, Peace, although I agree it _is_ damned inconvenient having everything rely on people, who actually have eyes in their heads. Much harder to spoof than pure data, as we all well know. Sunlight?]

Light from Distant Suns stepped up. ‘There does seem to be a rebel network of sorts, centered around some former home worlds of the Bellogeri’s slaves. Especially _these_.’

She put an image in their minds. It was an alien race that could best be described as a four-armed bipedal elephant with bright blue skin and thick but dexterous seven-fingered hands.

‘The Amerontiki,’ said the ancilla, ‘A Lifeworker experiment from long ago, now grown into an interstellar species in their own right. Up until the Bellogeri came, at least.’

[Will they work with us? Help organize the other species too?]

There were at least a dozen, including the Amerontiki: a lizard people with a quality like poison dart frogs, where their normal food let them produce toxins through their skin (not that the Bellogeri let them eat it now); another cat-people like the Lituni, only barely knee-high on the Spartan and primarily quadrupedal; a hive-mind worm race, distant kin to the Lekgolo of the Covenant; and more.

‘I think so. But the others have their own rebels and even a few free colonies. Hidden, of course. The Bellogeri have hints as to their location, but nothing solid. They don't have _us_.’ She gestured to herself and the other ancillae.

[Can you find them?]

‘Definitely, but it might take some time. There’s a lot of data to sift through and triangulate.’

[Do it. Work out a rotation if need be. If we can get in contact with them, warn them that we’re coming for these assholes, maybe they can get their people out of the way - or at least tell them to stand down and let us pass. I can’t imagine that they’ll take well to _another_ straight up invasion.]

* * *

The moon seemed barely a speck next to the gas giant it orbited. A failed brown dwarf, it brought to mind Viperidae, the site of Admiral Cole’s last stand (was it actually the last? SURGEON had seemed to think he was still alive with his Insurrectionist wife…). _Audacity_ skimmed as close to the clouds as possible, observing the colony.

Despite its _apparent_ size, the moon was actually a respectable planetoid, not quite Earth-sized, but definitely bigger than Luna. The ships and satellites orbiting her were clearly stolen and patched together, but they seemed like they would hold up in a fight. The surface was more of the same, a shantytown of derelicts and parts of derelicts and wreckage.

‘Commander,’ Winterspell said quietly, ‘We’re being hailed.’

[Give them formal greetings, and tell them we’re here to speak with Hex.]

“Hex” was the closest he could come to pronouncing the Amerontiki’s name without modifying his vocal cords - the closest any non-Amerontiki could come, actually. And he was _old_ , too - old enough to remember a time when his people had lived free, nearly a thousand years ago.

 _Audacity_ broke orbit, aiming for the planetoid. A cluster of patchwork fighters swung up to escort them when they entered the atmosphere, even as the Forerunner ship adjusted to handle the entry.

They set down on a landing pad that held under the ship’s weight but still groaned alarmingly. The Infected stepped lightly when they disembarked, and followed Déjà’s directions down into the city. [Keep in contact, Winter. Don’t let anyone on the ship.]

‘Understood.’

The myriad people of the colony stared as the Infected passed; they’d brought one member of each species, including the Xevetan, so they were quite a varied bunch. But they all wore the same metallic green and black armor, all with the same symbol marking them as a part of the _Fleet_.

‘I still think we should be brightly colored. Like poison dart frogs - “Danger! Do not touch!”’

[Nope.]

‘Aw. But Commandeeeeer…!’

[No.]

There were some who thought to stop them, of course, but Qe’rid gently turned their minds away so that they found themselves thinking or doing something else. They had no wish to fight these people, struggling to survive in the shadow of a slave empire.

But the guards in front of Hex’s door, they did not turn away. It wasn't really a door; instead it was the beginning of a long tunnel down into the rock of the planetoid. Hex lived round the clock in the shelter under the city, where they grew some kind of rapidly-reproducing fungus that was the city’s primary food source. All but the hardiest of plant life tended to die or at least go dormant when the planetoid entered the gas giant’s shadow.

The Amerontiki wasn't alone when they entered, but then he’d said he wouldn’t be. There were two others of his kind with him, and the leaders - or at least representatives - of a few other rebel cells, a disparate but tight-knit group.

Hex was a thousand years old, and looked it, too. What sparse hair he had was chalk white, and even for an elephant-like race, he was _thoroughly_ wrinkled, almost shriveled up. _“You speak the Bellogeri’s common tongue?”_ he rasped without preamble.

 _“We do,”_ said Silver-Moon in that language, though the words were awkward, new, on her tongue.

Introductions went around - the rebels’ were coded, the _Fleet_ had no need - and Hex said, _“So you’re the new ones they found, huh? The ones who’ve been causing so much trouble.”_

 _“In a manner of speaking. They’ve gotten their licks in, but we destroyed their supercarrier_ Forward Thrust _.”_

 _That_ caused a stir. One of the cat-people, Pvren, hopped up to sit on the table and said, _“We_ all _heard about that - those bastards were_ furious _. That was_ you _?!”_

_“It was.”_

Pvren said something that had to be a curse. The other rebel leaders murmured amongst themselves.

 _“What do you want from us, then?”_ Hex asked, leaning forward, fingers threading together and eyes glinting with interest, _“If you can take out an entire fleet of theirs, especially_ that one _, I hardly think you’ll need us to fight the Bellogeri.”_

 _“You are correct, but only if we were going for the extermination of an entire race - and all their subject species with them,”_ Silver-Moon replied, _“We do not believe in punishing_ all _for the sins of only a few. But we wonder if you might tell us, this reverence for the Flood, the cruelty, the slavery -_ truly _, is it_ born _or_ learned _?”_

Hex caught on before any of the others. _“You wonder if there are some who might be saved.”_ There were shouts of outrage from the others, but he held up a hand for silence - and got it.

 _“We do,”_ said Silver-Moon, _“We have no wish to wage a war without end, only holding them off and ignoring your own suffering in favor of resolving our own internal problems first, but neither do we wish to_ eradicate _an entire_ people _because of one potential - and admittedly major - cultural issue. Is it_ born _or is it_ learned _?”_

Hex took a long look at each of them, and they met his gaze levelly. Finally, he said, _“Brumna, you would know best. And answer truthfully.”_

He turned to one of the poison dart lizards. They crossed their arms almost sullenly but said, _“The hatchlings are all right. None of this_ madness _that the adults have. They go for schooling after they get their adult feathers, and then when they graduate, they get taken away and go through some kind of ritual - and end up like_ that _.”_

 _“The logic plague?”_ John murmured to the others.

Hex heard clearly despite the Spartan’s low voice. _“‘The logic plague’?”_ he repeated, _“What’s that?”_

 _“A Flood illness of both mind and machine,”_ Silver-Moon answered, _“Although, we’ve only seen it once in… a being of flesh, like us. Mostly it was used against intelligent computer programs, to make them the Flood’s creatures and turn them against us. We know the signs, but we would need to see for ourselves to know for sure.”_

That sent more murmurs through the rebel leaders. Finally, Pvren said, _“I know where the ritual takes place; I’ll take you there. I don't like the thought of sparing any one of these_ bastards _, but if it isn't really their fault… Well, we’ll see.”_

An argument broke out after that; more than half of the rebels were all for just destroying the Bellogeri down to the last egg, but in the end, Hex settled the matter. _“You who advocate for their destruction are no better than them,”_ he said firmly, everyone falling silent to hear him speak, _“If this Flood really makes monsters out of even the kindest and most innocent of hatchlings, then we_ must _eliminate it to stop its spread, even if only to spare our own people. But we should not do it at the cost of our own souls, our own-”_ He used a phrase that roughly translated to ‘humanity’. _“If this ‘logic plague’ is the source of this madness, then the Bellogeri at least have even half an excuse for their actions. We have no such thing, if we rise up and utterly destroy them._

_“Pvren, take them to the ritual location. See what might be seen, then report back.”_

* * *

The cat-person followed them back to _Audacity_ , and directed them to a small planet on the very edge of the galaxy. Like Charum Hakkor, in one direction, one could see a streak of light like white on black canvas, but in the other direction was nothing but a black void and far distant galaxies.

The planet was heavily guarded, but over the years, the _Fleet_ had equipped _Audacity_ with the same stealth technology that concealed their corvettes, and the Bellogeri had nothing that even came close to detecting them.

Pvren directed them to a small valley not too far away from what seemed to be a temple complex. _“I used to look after the hatchlings a_ long _time ago,”_ she said, sounding almost wistful, _“Or a long time for_ me _, anyway. They were predators, yes, but they weren’t_ this _. But every time without fail, when they went for the ritual, they came back with madness in their minds. One day I had had enough. I sneaked on to one of the ships taking the young ones for the ritual, and it brought us here. I followed them through the complex, but I couldn't get into the actual ritual building. Security’s too heavy around the time they ‘graduate’. But one and all, even the sweetest, came out as monsters.”_

John felt the hair on his neck stand on end. The rest of the _Fleet_ felt his disturbance as well and immediately asked what was wrong.

Nothing he could define, only a growing sense of dread.

_whispers of a nameless fear_

Pvren led them carefully over the rooftops and through narrow alleys next to a processional way, heading for the largest and most ornate of the buildings, the dread still increasing with every step.

The computer systems here were no smarter than any of the others the Bellogeri had, so it was easy for Déjà to override the controls and admit them to the main temple complex. Once they stepped inside, Pvren said, _“You'll have to take over from here. I’ve never been this far in.”_

_“Déjà, show us the way to whatever’s at the heart.”_

_“Understood.”_

The ancilla directed them through to a large amphitheater under the main dome. The instant they entered, all the Infected stopped dead in their tracks.

There was a cylinder at the center of the arena, cracked but intact, horrible and familiar.

 _“What the hell is that?”_ Pvren spoke aloud.

She took a few steps toward the cylinder, but immediately several members of the _Fleet_ put themselves between the cat-woman and the cylinder. _“What-?!”_

 _“No closer,”_ John growled, _“Not unless you want to become like the Bellogeri. Let’s get out of here. We’ve seen enough.”_

* * *

‘Another Precursor?!’

‘It makes a certain amount of sense. The one on Charum Hakkor survived Mendicant Bias’s test firing in its stasis capsule.’

‘The Bellogeri must have found a way to contact it, or else the cracks in the capsule are letting the Primordial’s influence leak out into the world.’

John listened to his Infected as they discussed and debated and argued amongst themselves, even as they began moving equipment to capture the planet and throw it into its star. He was so intent on _not thinking_ that he barely noticed when Pvren hopped up onto his lap and sat down. _“You know what that thing is? What’s inside it?”_

_“We do. We encountered one like it, long ago, and it was the source of many problems.”_

_“What is it?”_

_“...A monster.”_

* * *

When they returned to the rebel planet, only a few days after they left, they sat the rebel leaders down and told them what they had seen. Then they told them about the Flood, its history, what it had done, and now what it was still doing, through this other Primordial and the Bellogeri.

 _“We are already preparing planet-moving technology, so it can be thrown into its star and destroyed without anyone else having to set foot on it,”_ Silver-Moon finished, _“but… that is why things are the way they are. If we can do this, get rid of the Primordial, then perhaps_ all of us _may yet be saved.”_

_“Including the Bellogeri?”_

_“Including the Bellogeri. Although I imagine it will be a long time yet before they can interact with your people without the shame of their history hanging over them. We can relocate them and let them begin anew - the galaxy is vast - but we must move quickly. We dare not leave our own people alone for too long.”_

* * *

It still took some time to move everything into place, longer still for the rebel cell leaders to contact all the others, tell them what was happening and convince them that when the time came, they should get their people to safety but also grab all the Bellogeri eggs they could lay hands on and deliver them to the _Fleet_.

But at last, it was time. Right as the new “graduates” were being taken for a session with the Primordial, the _Fleet_ arrived, disabled the ships, and then used their tech to shift the planet’s orbit inward at an oblique angle, which would carry it into the system’s star inside of six months.

Not even the Primordial could survive such a close meeting with such intense natural forces.

The Bellogeri seemed to understand, because when their ships were boarded, they fought like people gone mad. Some of them even abandoned their weapons in favor of just throwing themselves at the Infected as if they were actual combat forms, shrieking their rage, but they had no more success than those who fought more logically.

The younglings had sense, at least; they grouped together and barricaded themselves in their rooms.

Bit by bit, the ship went quiet. The Tuavan searched out any lurkers and escapees before calling to the younglings with their minds. _It’s all right, little ones. It’s safe._

Several of them returned with similar calls, saying effectively, _You say that now, right after you just murdered our parents._

 _They were taking you to a fate worse than death. This we know for certain._ With their ability, they were able to show the _Fleet_ ’s memory of the black and evil seed planted in the Didact’s mind by the Primordial, the recollection full of fresh horror with the discovery of this Precursor. Then they showed the Forerunner-Flood War. _Did they tell you that you would be rewarded with glory and riches and power when the Flood returned? Did they say that your species would rise over all others save the Flood itself, that you would rule the galaxy second only to it? Lies, all of it. It would consume you like it consumed us, break your minds and wills and use you to break your families as well before they are even taken._ They remembered the conversation the Didact had with the Master Builder - “my wives, my children, speaking to me from within a Gravemind!” _It doesn't care about any of us. There is nothing for you there, unless you seek an end to all that you are, and all those you love with you._

There were some hardliners, of course, but many more turned away from the Flood, from the Primordial and its will. Some even joined the rebels and fought for the freedom of all their peoples.

One of them had been the son of one of the Primary Feathers, the leaders of the Bellogeri, and he slipped one of the _Fleet_ ’s viruses into the control network, giving them the real time locations of all the harpies’ fleets and colonies.

It was over almost before it had begun. They came at the twisted Bellogeri from without and within, and brought down their empire in under an Earth year.

It would take much, _much_ longer to rebuild.

* * *

Things weren't looking any better back home. They returned to Ecumene space just in time to see the Xevetan detonate a biological weapon in the Lituni’s atmosphere.

[Well it looks like we’ve got some more governments to topple. And we’re not gonna play nice this time. They should know better. Venera, Kenera, Johenji. It’s time to cause problems on purpose.]

The Spartan didn’t need to see their faces to know that all three – and all their other co-conspirators – wore wide grins that showed far too many teeth. [Commander,] they said as one, [it would be our _genuine_ pleasure.]

* * *

Amerontiki – Ah-meh-rone-tee-kee

Pvren – Puhv-ren


	25. Twenty-Three: The Faint Light of Tomorrow

There had been no sign of Déjà in the UNSC. Whether that was a result of them changing history in some way or some other unknown factor, the _Fleet_ didn't know, so while they were off dealing with the bullshit that was the collapse of the Third Ecumene, John slipped _their_ Déjà in to take her place with instructions to monitor the Spartans and report back as frequently as she thought wise.

That wound up being about once a month, which was nice. And while they were no more pleased than the rest of the Ecumene had been, upon learning about the SPARTAN-II Program’s _methods of acquisition_ , the _Fleet_ still cooed over the “baby Spartans” in training.

John found it weird, and the others probably would as well, but he let it be. It _was_ his circus, but it still wasn’t his monkey.

And then in 2549, another report came in from Déjà. This report was less of a report and more of a single still from security footage, of Doctor Halsey facing off against an AI, avatar nude and female and red as blood.

John hesitated for a moment, then reached out to touch the screen.

“Cortana?”


	26. Twenty-Four: Truth, Thy Name is Vengeance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting early bc I may or may not be getting hit by a hurricane tomorrow/Sunday.

_Come to Reach. We have something you should see._

* * *

Some of the ships of the _Last Fleet_ were hanging in low orbits above Reach when the _Infinity_ arrived with the Separatists. None of them had really seen the ships in question _up close_ until then, but even at nearly six kilometers long each, the _Infinity_ and the _Shadow of Intent_ were dwarfed by all but the stealth corvettes and the smallest frigates, which flitted like songbirds around the larger ships.

The ships in question were - were _ripping up_ the glass that now coated the surface of Reach, exposing rock and earth underneath. But that wasn't all; the massive hunks of glass were pulled into the ships and passed through them - and then rained back down to the surface as rock, as soil, as air and water. As seeds of plants that grew at high speed before their very eyes, sprouting and flowering and breeding and dying back, but more slowly with each iteration until their native biomes were fully restored. Enormous swarms of dropships were even releasing wildlife back onto the sections of the planet that had already been re-terraformed. Even the oceans were being refilled and replenished.

Aine appeared on a holotank on the bridge. “Handshake protocol, sir,” she said to Lord Hood, “We’re all being invited to dock with the _Perfect Storm_. Us and the Separatists.”

“And which ship is that?”

The AI gestured to the holotable on the bridge, where a hologram of the local space appeared, the _Storm_ marked. The flagship was _massive_ , easily more than ten times the size of the _Infinity_ , yet because of their imprint and the memories it had given them, they knew that she was only a medium-sized Forerunner ship, if that, and the _Last Fleet_ itself was _tiny_ , only twenty-three ships.

The Battle of the Maginot Sphere had involved close to _five million_ ships, even if only a small fraction of those - about eighty-six thousand - had actually been warships.

Only a few of the ships were actually at Reach, however. The _Call of Midnight_ , a similarly-sized battleship, was running parallel to the _Storm_ over Reach’s largest continent, stripping away the vitrification and restoring the planet. The supercarrier _Gift of Life_ was even bigger than the battleships, running along in their wake, her clouds of dropships doing continuous loops to release fauna into their restored biomes.

There were also a number of other ships doing other sweeps over the planet, scanning for anything significant that survived, and two destroyers sat in high orbits above the planet, standing guard just in case; their ship IDs indicated they were the _Ring of Winter_ and the _Worldquake_. Though they were much smaller than the battleships, their firepower was even greater, and the _Worldquake_ , at least, was aptly named; she had been converted from a “planet-cracker” Miner ship into a destroyer.

“Go ahead and take us in, Aine. Let’s see what the Commander has to tell us.”

“As you wish, sir.”

The _Infinity_ ’s engines fired, the _Shadow of Intent_ with them, and bit by bit they drew alongside the _Storm_. When they were close enough, the battleship spun out a net of hard light for each of them, “catching” them gently and drawing them to soft-dock on her side. They settled in without even the slightest jolt.

Hood and a few others - both of the Keyes’, Admiral Parangosky, Doctor Halsey, a handful of scientists, and one lonely diplomat - left the bridge and made their way to one of the cargo bays, where the Spartan-IIs were already waiting, alert but calm, at ease. A large and comfortable-looking ship - a repurposed council ship, the _Night Wind_ \- was also waiting, having just settled on the deck. It easily carried them all across the gap into one of the _Storm_ ’s bays, where they met up with the Arbiter and some of his trusted warriors - and Nethalia, second-in-command of the _Fleet of Shadows_.

“Welcome aboard,” she said, inclining her head to them all, “The Commander and Lady Cortana are within. Please, this way.”

“Thank you,” said Hood as they all moved to follow, “Are you able to give us any hints about what he wants to show us?”

“Something that we ourselves only recently learned,” she answered, “and something we hope will be conducive towards peace between humanity and the former Covenant.”

They rode a transport system - an internal bullet train - though not for very long. Nethalia led them through another hall after that, and they emerged on an observation deck near the bow of the _Storm_. The glass being ripped up was closer now, and they could see that the bow had been reconfigured into a funnel shape to suck it all in.

There were two people watching. One turned to look at their approach.

It was Cortana, but not as they had known her. She was flesh and blood now, and wore Forerunner armor that roughly mimicked her appearance as an AI in the Origin, blue plating with blue-white pulses of light sliding over her. Her hair was dark like Halsey’s had been, but it still had a distinct navy cast to it.

She smiled at them, then touched the other’s arm. He looked at her, and then turned to face them.

It was John-117, as unchanged as the day he’d arrived in their world.

Halsey was the first to speak. “How…?” She began, taking a step closer to look Cortana over.

“Flood biomass,” John answered, tilting his head just slightly, “We can reshape ourselves to look pretty much however we want, and we can do the same with excess biomass. That, coupled with our ‘mysterious technological telepathy,’ and…” He gestured to the embodied AI, who grinned and did a little spin so they could see her from all sides.

“Still don’t know how that works, huh?”

“Not in the slightest. Our best guess is neural physics, but we don't know how that works either.” He pursed his lips briefly, looking unimpressed, then continued. “But I asked you here for a reason.

“I know you at least were _there_ when Harvest was first attacked, Sergeant,” John said to Johnson, “but for the sake of those who _weren’t_... In mid-January, 2525 human time, the Covenant first made contact with humanity on the Outer Colony world of Harvest, kicking off nearly thirty years of bloody warfare and billions of deaths on both sides. The official reason was that humankind’s destruction was the will of the Covenant’s ‘gods’.”

Nethalia snorted loudly, but John ignored her.

“You say it like that wasn’t actually the case,” said one of the Sangheili.

“Because it wasn’t.” The Spartan flicked a wrist, and a hologram came up. “Do you recognize this symbol, Field Master?”

“Reclamation,” the Sangheili answered automatically, “A marker of Forerunner artifacts in the Covenant. But you showed us that that is not the case - a mistranslation of ‘Reclaimer.’”

“Indeed,” John said with an approving nod, “And one of the central tenets of the Covenant faith was that firing the Halo Array would cause those who died by it to ascend to godhood, yes? The ‘Great Journey.’”

“Correct,” said the Field Master.

“That is also a misinterpretation. During the reintroduction following the firing, the San’Shyuum were the last to be returned to their home planet, as you saw. While that was taking place, the Forerunners were making plans for their own species - to depart the galaxy forever, and for their people to slowly fade away. Their leader, the IsoDidact, felt strongly that they had failed the galaxy that their _Mantle_ -” He said the word with disdain. “-had ‘placed in their care.’ He felt that they deserved to be forgotten. To go extinct. They had traveled far and done much, had designated humankind as their heirs, and though they never explicitly said where they were _going_ , for they all parted ways in the end, they talked amongst themselves that this was to be their last and _greatest journey_.

“And some of the San’Shyuum overheard, prior to their reintroduction.” He let that hang for a moment, then continued, “All of that came together in January of 2525, on _High Charity_. Unbeknownst to any of us, a fragment of Mendicant Bias had stowed away on the _Anodyne Spirit_ , the keyship you called the Forerunner Dreadnought. It was him that the Covenant originally called the ‘Oracle’, and it is from him that this knowledge comes. Dream Chaser, if you would, please…”

A hologram flickered to life in the center of the room, in life-like full color. The Sangheili - and a few Spartans - hissed. “Truth, Regret, and Mercy,” the Arbiter growled for those who did not know, “ _before_ their ascension to Hierarch.”

Though the three spoke in Sangheili with an unseen individual - Mendicant Bias - 117 provided translations for everyone else. And they all saw. They all heard.

The three Hierarchs had _known_ that humans were the Reclaimers, the heirs of the Forerunners - Mendicant Bias had _told_ them on the keyship. They had _known_ , and had chosen to eradicate humanity anyway.

“Whether Truth really was the power-hungry megalomaniac he seemed to be, or whether he truly wanted to eliminate what _he_ saw as an ‘affront to the gods’ and a threat to the cohesion of the Covenant, we do not know,” said the Commander, folding his arms, “The enemy Flood took him before we could, and so he is forever beyond our reach. But given the - _Changing of the Guard_ , the Great Schism, and how he abandoned Regret to the Spartans and Mercy to the Flood… well. I know what _we_ think. We will leave it up to you to decide what _you_ think.”

“Can you give us a copy of that to take with us?” Hood asked, “I think the rest of HIGHCOM should see it. Maybe even the rest of the UEG as well.” He exchanged glances with Parangosky. “Your second-in-command was right when she said this might be conducive towards peace.”

“We certainly hope so. Humanity and the Covenant have been at war long enough. Soulseeker?”

_“Working. Trying to ensure compatibility with the UNSC and the Covenant networks. I assume you would like one as well, Arbiter?”_

“Indeed.” The Sangheili dipped his head in assent. “But there are those among my people who will not be so easy to sway. The Covenant still has fierce adherents even now.”

“What if their gods came and spoke to them? A significant portion of the Fleet _is_ Forerunner. With your permission, the _Gift of Life_ could follow you back to Sanghelios.” John gestured in the direction of the supercarrier. “That would be kind of hard for them to ignore, their gods coming back in the flesh to tell them to calm down.”

The Arbiter hummed. “We will consider it, but regardless of what we decide, thank you for offering.”

“Of course.” He turned back to everyone else. “You're welcome to explore if you like. Just know that locked rooms are locked for a reason, and if you get lost, just ask Soulseeker to guide you back or send someone to get you. We’re still going to be here for at least another week to finish re-terraforming, maybe two to monitor the planet afterwards.”

Doctor Halsey and the other scientists immediately started looking around, craning their heads in all directions and making notes on their pads.

“Soulseeker, if you could ask Peace and some of his team to come talk to the UNSC’s scientists and the Sangheili, that would be great.”

_“On their way, Commander.”_

“Peace-in-the-Deep-Sea is one of the heads of the Builder contingent,” he explained, “specifically the group that handles developing new technologies.”

“It would be good to speak with them - and learn under them if we can,” said Halsey.

“It would be interesting to have some collaboration on all sides, from all peoples, especially now that the Third Ecumene has collapsed. We’ll discuss it. - And Soulseeker?”

_“Sir.”_

“Get the Librarian on the line. Tell her she has some visitors. I think Doctor Halsey at least will be eager to speak with her.”

The scientist went nearly incandescent with joy and eagerness. The Builders in question came by, and led most of the scientists and Sangheili away. When they had gone, Fred asked, “And what about us?”

“What about you?”

“What are your intentions towards us? _Graveminds are greedy_ , you said. Do you want us to join you?”

“It would be nice, I won't deny that, but I don't expect it. Especially not now that the UNSC will need you more than ever.”

“The Insurrection,” said Kelly, tilting her head, “What you read in the Domain, about early humanity - it’s true?”

“It is.” John nodded a little sadly. “The UNSC _has_ to put the Insurrection down, by force or diplomacy, and unfortunately I cannot help you. Not directly at least.”

“The rest of the galaxy also needs your attention, not just us,” said Hood.

“Indeed. But that doesn’t mean I can't help you _at all_.” Another Forerunner appeared at his side and handed over a fist-sized metal cube before disappearing again. John popped it open to show them what was inside: a smaller cube glowing a soft blue - a data crystal. “This has the recording of Truth, as well as every scrap of intel we have on _all_ the Insurrectionist cells. _Every. Last. One_. Tech, materiel, funding, personnel, access codes, backdoors - right down to the brands of cleaning supplies they buy, if we can find it. What you do with it is up to you.” He closed up the cube again and handed it to Hood.

“Why me?”

“Because we know you, and we trust your judgement,” the Spartan answered, “and we trust you to do what is _necessary_ , and no more.”

The man squeezed the cube gently as if to make sure it was real. The Spartans could hardly believe it themselves; this one intel drop effectively handed victory to the UNSC. “Thank you,” said Linda.

“Don’t thank me,” he replied, “because some of your biological families are a part of it.”

That made them all straighten. “You know about their…?” Keyes started but trailed off.

John gave them a smile edged with some undefinable emotion. Bitterness? Grief? “As a favor to the children you used to be and the friendships I had with _my_ versions of you, we arranged for your biological families to be moved to safety shortly after the war began in earnest. Most of them were alive at last check - before the Battle of Zero-Four - but some of them… Well. Most of you were replaced with flash clones, as some of you know.”

Daisy, Ralph, Joseph, and Oscar shifted a little. They had escaped once, shortly after the augmentations, trying to return to their homes - only to find that they had been replaced. It hadn't gone well for some of them - Ralph had killed his clone - but they had seen the state the clones were in. And all of them knew that there were side effects from flash cloning, at least back then; Déjà had taught them as much.

“Your clones didn't have your memories - they _weren’t_ you \- and some of your family members recognized that. Some of them did nothing, just cared for the clones as best they could for as long as they lived, but others… I doubt they actually know it’s _true_ , but some of them insisted that the deaths of their children were the work of a government conspiracy. They joined the Insurrection seeking revenge.”

“How many?” Fred asked.

John’s gaze went distant for a second as he consulted with the intel. Then he said, “Six.”

Six families out of seventy-five wasn't bad. Well, seventy-four, since Soren’s family had died before Doctor Halsey came for him.

“What about _your_ family?”

“They don't exist here; Cortana checked. Although, apparently you and I are cousins.” He looked to Darius-116. “In a manner of speaking, anyway.”

Darius nodded in satisfaction, then tilted his head. “Are we ever going to see you again?”

“Bold of you to assume the UNSC could ever get rid of us; we can’t even get rid of ourselves. But I’m sure we will, and if you ever need a hand, just open a COM link and ask who’s on duty. One of our ancillae is always listening to UNSC channels; they'll help you out as much as they can.”

“We’ll do that. Thank you.”


	27. Twenty-Five: Road of the Dark Soldier

Jorge was the first of the IIs to go over to the _Fleet_ , though it wasn't for a while.

With the intel the _Fleet_ had provided, the Insurrection was mostly quelled and reintegrated into the UNSC, with concessions and new charters on both sides, but it still took _years_ for the fighting to be over. The Arbiter had his own problems to deal with, and he did eventually invite the _Fleet_ to speak to the Covenant’s devotees. Like the Bellogeri, there were some who refused to accept the truth, but there were many more who did.

Jorge was the first of the IIs to go over. While there was still fighting taking place, mostly with the Covenant loyalists, he got hit hard by a plasma battery that damn near killed him. The UNSC was able to flash-freeze him and bring him back, of course, but even with cryo and medicine and augmentations, the Spartans were beginning to feel their age. Even Johnson had _finally_ taken a desk job after nearly losing both legs to an Innie bomb.

The UNSC had contingencies, of course. They had already begun training a new generation of Spartans - SPARTAN-IVs - with the few remaining IIIs, and they were put into the field with the teams of IIs to give them experience and examples. And as they grew in skill and experience, the UNSC started pulling the IIs back. They were heroes to the populace, and upon learning of it, ONI had immediately adopted Directive 930 - Spartans never die, they're just Missing In Action - just in case. Still, if something _public_ happened… and the S-IIs weren't exactly _young_ anymore… Well, the S-IIs and IIIs were perfectly content to step back and let the S-IVs take over as the public face of the Spartan Corps.

Jorge was the first to go over, but he was far from the last. He was still sore and limping with the surgeries when he hobbled onto the _Storm_. John raised an eyebrow at him, and the other S-II waived a hand. _“Fuck off,”_ he growled, which made the other grin and step over to slide an arm over his shoulders and take most of his weight.

The rest of his team - James, Keiichi, and Isaac - weren't far behind, and then it was nearly a deluge, one S-II team after another retiring from the UNSC and jumping ship to the _Fleet_. Some of the S-IIIs came in the later days as well - Jun, Tom, Lucy, Kevin, Hazel, and a dozen or so others – and some IVs behind them.

(“Are you going to steal _all_ of the Spartans, Supreme Commander?”)

(“ _Acquiring_ , Admiral Hood, we’re not stealing, we’re _acquiring_. And I hadn't planned on it, but now that you mention it…”)

(The amused-exasperated expression on the other’s face had pulled a short chuckle from the Spartan.)

The Ecumene was eventually renegotiated, rebuilt, this time with the UNSC and Covenant species, and the Bellogeri, Amerontiki, and all the others.

(‘A Fourth Ecumene. Do you think we’ll live to see a Fifth, Commander?’)

([Oh Divines I hope not. Let’s not try to look that far ahead, shall we?])

* * *

Halsey herself was the last to come over, just in time for John and Cortana to be formally married. They had chosen to adapt the Saavaasi wedding traditions for their own use, with the wholehearted approval of the people themselves. Since the Naga-like people had arisen on such a dangerous planet, they valued the ability to defend themselves, their family, and their clan above all else. As a result, their engagement tradition involved one of the parties forging a sword for the other. If the receiver did not wish to be married to the giver, then they simply kept the sword to be either passed down for the children’s use before their own engagement, or they melted it down for use in a sword for the one they _did_ want. But if the sentiment was returned, then they forged another sword to give to the original giver.

(“And here I was going to propose with a boring old ring.”)

(“But this is so much better, isn’t it?”)

(“You know me so well, Cortana.”)

With swords exchanged, they spent a year and a day (roughly six hundred Earth days) training together and learning to work with the other, to defend each other. When the engagement period was finished, they entwined their tails (or in this case, stood back to back) and fought against a certain number of relatives of the other’s family. (Both of them lacking such members, they fought against some Spartans and other members of the _Fleet_.) The objective on both sides was to draw first blood; the couple could take a nick from each of the other combatants, while the others could only take one from either of the couple before they had to withdraw. If the others got all their nicks in before the couple could, then they had to train for another year and a day before trying again. But if the couple blooded all the others first, then they were wed in the eyes of the Saavaasi.

(“OW! Son of a bitch!”)

(“James, you okay?!”)

(“Your wife got me in the balls!”)

But John had a hundred thousand years’ worth of experience for Cortana to draw on, and the Spartans of the “Parallel” weren't so different from those in the Origin that his knowledge there wasn't worth anything. The AI got nicked three times, and the Spartan once, before they took down all the others.

And they all lived in relative peace - until Cortana started thinking.

* * *

“I’ve been thinking.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

Cortana swatted the Spartan, but there was no real heat to it. Still, he’d turned his head to listen, so she continued, “I’ve been wondering… what would a child of ours be like?”

That made John frown and actually sit up to look at her. “Define ‘be like.’”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I’m not sure that I do. I can’t see a child of a Gravemind being anything other than another Gravemind or a monster.”

“Not like that. I mean… maybe like how the UNSC makes AIs. Cognitive impression modeling, our patterns combined.”

“AIs made from our minds, planted in Flood flesh programed to grow and age naturally? Like a normal human’s?”

“If that’s what it takes. We have Halsey’s genome on file - or even Miranda’s - and I still remember yours, so that’s also an option.”

The Spartan leaned back on one elbow with a soft smile. “You really want a child from the two of us?”

“...Sort of, yeah.” She tucked herself up against his side, and he drew her in gladly. “I just… I know nothing can really happen to us. Like you said, ‘bold of you to assume the UNSC can get rid of us; we can’t even get rid of ourselves.’ But, if something _does_ happen… Whenever an AI is sentenced to final dispensation, there’s nothing left, no real core thoughts or memories, just scattered data. I…”

“If something happens, you want to leave behind real proof that you were here, that you loved and were loved.” He rested his chin on her head. “Something - some _one_ \- as proof of existence.”

“...Yes. I do.”

* * *

It took a bit to work out the specifics, but they did it. And not just them, but others, too. For the first time, the Flood _created_ life, instead of _taking_ it.

The Spartan and AI unexpectedly wound up with fraternal twins, a girl and a boy, and though they had different names when they were young, when they reached adulthood, they named themselves after their mother, in a way.

_ I am Cortana, of the same steel and temper as  _ ** Joyeuse ** _and_ **Durandal** _._


	28. Epilogue: Time of Departure

Go home, Spartan, ancilla.

 _The vision hit them all in the dead of night, the first full one in thousands of years. But instead of looking forward or back, they found themselves looking_ out _, beyond the walls of their universe to the billions and billions and billions of other divergent timelines. They whirled like individual stars around the center of their own universe - the Origin._

You must go home.

That _universe was frozen in place, suspended in a moment in time - December 11, 2556. The anniversary of the portal collapse._

**the ripples spread out, lapping at the bottom of the well**

_But there was a shadow over it all, a coming darkness. No one knew - no one could see - the Flood - the enemy Gravemind that had sent them to this world from that one-_

Go home, Spartan, ancilla.

_The major cleaving that had transported itself to them – it would be just enough._

Go home!

* * *

I'm coming home, I'm coming home,  
Tell the world I'm coming home,  
Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday,  
I know my kingdom awaits and they've forgiven my mistakes,  
I'm coming home, I'm coming home  
Tell the world that I'm coming,  
I'm coming home,

I'm coming home…

I'm coming home.

-“Coming Home [Standerwick Remix]”, Dash Berlin feat Bo Bruce


End file.
